Elevator Hijinks

FROM: fresh
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 1:53:35 am

come on paul you cant tell me when you were a kid waitin for the light to change you didnt push it atleast 37 times

FROM: Ryan
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 2:07:22 am

Right on, Paul. I've observed those very same phenomena.

My favorite is the confused walk when you get off of the elevator and are trying to figure out if you need to go left or right (this applies if there are elevators on opposite sides of the hallway).

FROM: dave
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 8:59:49 am

What's worse is the elevator in my building...sometimes it will send you to the 12th floor for no reason.

FROM: Robert [E-Mail]
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 2:20:02 pm

People push lighted buttons probably because they have a psychological need to believe that they are mastering their own destiny. It's like if they accept that a button already pressed will get them where they want to go then life must be deciding itself for them.

FROM: Monica
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 2:50:13 pm

Oh, man, elevators. First of all, I think people push the button after it's lighted out of habit. Not a good one, since you just have to be OBSERVANT, but anyway. Sometimes I'll get in the elevator at work and go to push the button for my floor, and when my finger's almost at the button, I notice it's already lit. So I pull back. Maybe some people just don't pull back because their finger's already there...?
What I hate the most are the people who hold the elevators on a floor by holding the doors open so that they can talk to someone. That's really inconsiderate and annoying.
Our elevators at AOS/SSEC like to skip the 8th floor and let people out on the 9th floor. I think maybe the guys on the 9th floor are lonely.

FROM: Orange Yusmart
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 8:00:09 pm

Hmm. Tell me, what does it hurt to push an already-lighted button? Lighten up! Can't you find anything more important to bitch about? Some day you might happen to experience true trauma, and regret getting upset over this petty observance.

FROM: Monica
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 8:26:03 pm

true, but on the other hand, isn't it nice that we don't have any big things to complain about? In our immediate surroundings, that is.

FROM: Robert [E-Mail]
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 8:56:05 pm

Isn't it petty to complain about a petty complaint?

FROM: MollyCule
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 10:40:55 pm

I stayed in a hotel in Toronto a few yeras back where the elevator (if the indicator lights by the ceiling are to be believed) took a full 32 seconds to pass though the 9th floor, whereas all of the other floors only required about 10-12 seconds.

FROM: Paul [E-Mail]
DATE: Saturday January 26, 2002 -- 11:56:29 pm

Orange, is BellSouth's DSL service any good?

FROM: Matt
DATE: Monday January 28, 2002 -- 12:29:38 am

The best cure is to just kill off these people. My suggestion: We round each one up after an offense. We then drive them out to the boonies and let them go. As they run we plow them down with a gatling gun!

FROM: Greg
DATE: Monday January 28, 2002 -- 10:05:32 am

Not that I would ever do anything like this, but a favorite passtime of a friend of mine in college was farting in an elevator right before getting to his destination. So when the people that got in after he got off had a "special treat". This was later called "Elevator Bingo". Sorry, there is no home game...yet.

FROM: Paul [E-Mail]
DATE: Monday January 28, 2002 -- 11:42:33 am

Greg: Not that I would ever do anything like this...

Riiight!

FROM: Jeani
DATE: Monday January 28, 2002 -- 12:11:20 pm

I had a sociology professor in college who delighted in performing behavioral experiments on unsuspecting elevator riders. One of her favorites was to face the back of the elevator when she was the only person on it, then observe (through the mirror in the corner) people's reactions as they got on to see a woman's back facing them. She would also stand at the very front of the elevator and make people go around her to get on and off, all the while taking mental notes of their behavior.

Frankly, I always thought the experiements sounded rather inconclusive and annoying.

FROM: Robert [E-Mail]
DATE: Monday January 28, 2002 -- 12:29:12 pm

Jeani: Sounds like your prof was just an incredible pain in the ass.

FROM: Jeani
DATE: Monday January 28, 2002 -- 12:48:57 pm

Yep, pretty much.

FROM: Barbara
DATE: Monday January 28, 2002 -- 1:14:35 pm

My Soc. Professor did the same experiment and went so far as to tell us to try it for homework. That assignment somehow managed to slip my mind.

FROM: Matt
DATE: Monday January 28, 2002 -- 11:45:34 pm

There was a skit like the experiments you are talking about on SNL.

FROM: Ben Dover
DATE: Friday September 27, 2002 -- 12:57:37 pm

The reason people hit the lit-up floor button again when they get on is that it interrupts the elevator's "wait for a new arrival to press a button" cycle. You must press a button (either door close or a floor button - and many elevators do not have a door close button) to interrupt this wait cycle. The way I see it, you have two choices other than letting this person push the button again: wait another 5 seconds for the elevator to conclude the person isn't going to push a button, or bitch and complain because a new arrival hit a random, unlit button just to close the doors and not piss you off. I'd say of these three scenarios, the person you despise is actually doing you a favor. Now people who push their way onto an elevator while you're trying to get off should be disembowled. Similarly, people who push an elevator call button after it has been pressed already are just stupid and not really hurting anyone. You just gotta let some stuff slide for your own sanity. Unless you like to complain...

FROM: Ryan
DATE: Friday September 27, 2002 -- 1:20:20 pm

Unless you like to complain...

Obviously, you haven't been through much of the site yet.