Saturday, February 12, 2011

Required Hate of the Day: Idiots Who Take Forever to Get In/Out of Elevators (or Lifts).

When you press the button to call the lift (or elevator), after a delay of about a second or so, it comes up to your floor. This delay is expected. Yet it's meaningless, even if you were in a rush because you know it has to start up and whatnot.

And then there are times when the lift doesn't come to you directly. It stops somewhere along the way. Fine, you think, it's just a couple of seconds since apa lah susahnya nak keluar/masuk lif kan? Door opens, walk through, door closes. Even if you had something to carry or you were on a mobility buggy, it won't take that much longer. So that's another few seconds then, no biggie.

But then there are those very rare times--perhaps more than two standard deviations away from the norm--when you have something really heavy to carry or you get something stuck, then maybe, just maybe, it'll take a few minutes. But these things only happen like, what, once a week? Once a month?

This building doesn't have ADA-friendly ramps, so no one with a buggy lives/comes here. It's mostly students, who obviously (like me) wake up 30 minutes before class and are therefore in a hurry to get to campus. Also on the college student thing, we don't have rush hours--some have their first class at 8:30AM, some have 'em at 1:30PM--so there should never be that scene where someone else keeps rushing in just when the door is about to close. You have the odd drug dealer, who would obviously want to get the fuck out of the place as soon as possible. All the old people and/or their office-clinics are on the ground floor so they never use the lifts (or elevators). There's never been a trash bag too big, or laundry too much that it takes you forever and a fucking day to shove it in the elevator (or lift) or drag it out of. These instances are not isolated to early/late in the semester when people move in/out--it happens far too often and is spread out too evenly for a possible seasonal/period effect--but even for moving in/out we have a freight elevator (or lift) for furniture.

You'd think the elevators (or lifts) would come to you really quick. You'd think.

So why is it then that, every so often, you find yourself pressing the button on your eighth floor, then staring at the display and seeing it go 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6...6...6...6...6...6...6...6...6...6... 7... 8... *ding*? It's not just the sixth floor (that's just an example, not singling you out or anything). It's every godforsaken floor, for fuck's sake. And it's not just this building. I'm pretty sure everyone has similar experiences elsewhere.

Why?

It's not that hard, you know, this elevator (or lift) thing. It takes about six seconds from when it starts to decelerate, open its doors, you getting out/in, you pressing the button, door closes and for it to start accelerating again. Noobs don't even need hand-eye or hand-leg coordination unlike escalators. You just walk. That's something you learn even before you learn how to speak.

So tell me, why do we wait ages for an idiot on another floor? Or, better yet if you're one of those idiots reading this, what do you do that takes you so long? You know what, the wait is annoying enough as it is, but continually thinking how you idiots get in/out of a lift (or elevator) is so much more irritating than it should ever be.