Pages

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Faster Lifts : Faster Stupidity

What is it with people and lifts? What is the rush?

When the light on the call-button is lit - obviously someone has pressed it already and one of the lifts will eventually be on its way - why do they have to press it again? The lift is not going to come any earlier because of your redundant poking. Why does the next person come up and, even though they have seen the last person press it, even though the light is still on, why do they press it yet again? The lift is fucking coming, all right? Shit-for-brains.

Leave. The. Call. Button. Alone.

~~

What do these impatient and hateful people, those who force their way into the elevator against those coming out, what do they hope to gain? Why is this millisecond of aggression so important? They're only going to amble off casually once they get to their floor anyway, chat absent-mindedly on their phones, take emails on their phones, read texts on their phones. What is with the fucking rush to get into the elevator? It's not going to get you to your floor any sooner.

Why? Because I am still at the back of those waiting to go in. The lift is not going to leave until the last person squeezes in, and that's me. Maybe I'll even poke my ample tummy - the tummy you stare at with such contempt, you are so disgustingly rude - into the infra-red beam that senses people coming in. Your pushing and shoving will be wasted. I am taking my fucking time, just to fuck you up, wankers.

~~

And you, hunched at the side of the lift's interior, why do you hover over the controls floor-buttons in the inside of the elevator as if they were a secret set of controls? Why do you block me? I want to press the button for my floor. Maybe in your mind these are controls to make contact for a 1.21 gigawatt burst of stored static electricity to surge through giant glass discharge balls, to send artificial lightning into a dead body, to bring a hybrid monster to life?

Or do you think your are lift operator? Maybe you have lift operator genes in you? Do you dream of an oversized, two-pronged lever to close the lift, like in the good old days? Are you a throwback to the grandfather on your mother's side, the grandfather who was a lift operator? Maybe your grandfather was Dr Frankenstein, working-part in a department store?

Get out of the fucking way, let me press the button for my fucking floor, crazy pricks!

Step. Away. From. The. Buttons.

~~

Why do people feel they have to press the door-OPEN button while the other people are coming in? Do they think they are in-charge, or that are being nice. This is an automatic lift with sensors, with retractable inner doors that trigger the reopening of the door if someone or something obstructs them. Anyway, the door is already open, stupid. It is not going to close yet as the infra-red beam has not been broken and the mechanism of closing cannot start. I can open a 99% closed door by running my hand in, either breaking the infra-red beam or holding back the inner pressure-sensitive doors which forces them to make contact with the door opening trigger. I don't need you help to get in. I am adult. I have a University Degree (equivalent). I can get into a lift by myself.

This is not your ancient HDB lift, one that stops at every second floor (Grandma in her wheelchair has to carried downstairs, welcome to Singapore) and tries to crush Grandma and any slow moving grand-children when it guillotines closed unexpectedly. This is a modern building, it's not going to happen, this is the modern world. Wake up to the 21st century. The ironic thing is that you are rude and aggressive everywhere else in your mean and petty life; I know your type, arseholes.

~~

Why do those patently rude people press the door-fucking-CLOSE button - jab, jab, jab, jab - when people are still coming in or even while people a few steps away are approaching the lift and who obviously want to go up or down, whichever way this lift is headed (or footed I guess, going footwards, down). You are the nice person in his true colours. Bastards, I hate you.

~~

Why do they all press that door-close button repeatedly - jab-jab-jab-jab-jab - even if the door has started closing already? Once a second or two elapses since the last person broke the infra-red beam, then, according to the design chosen by the lift-making company, the time-circuitry that controls this door is initiated, and the door has commenced to close. The urge for them to press this button seems irrepressible. What mechanism? Maybe there is a small spring-controlled wheel with a dropout area which allows the magneto to contact (the old way), maybe these days there an electronic program on a chip to to do it, but whatever - nothing these people can do will change this timing once it reached its closing sequence. (Industrial lifts have a longer time before they close.)

OK, the lift might close a bit sooner if the close button is pressed immediately after the last person has just entered, in the short insignificant time before the timing mechanism kicks in by itself. Then the spring will be released and the timing wheel will spin a bit faster and allow the contacts to be made a fraction earlier, either that or the hypothetical program will be over-ridden, but what is the fucking rush? The door will close automatically anyway, in fact it's already fucking closing, dickheads.

Stop. Pressing. The. Close. Button.

~~

Stop. Driving. Mr Grumpy. Crazy.

~~

Hell is other people in the lift. I hate all vertical commuters.

E@L

c.f: James Gleick, Faster

7 comments:

anthony said...

I get you on all the button pushing ones except the holding the open button while people get on. I understand that there is a IR beam (in some) and a sensor plate in most elevators. However since the sensor plate is the most common and they hurt when they actually crash into you before retracting the doors, I think its a courtesy to hold the door open, much like one would with a real door.

It's called manners, and with so many rude cunts in the world already I don't think we should begrudge or get upset at this small courtesy when its offered.

As for pushing the button I get the same urges at the cross walk.

expat@large said...

Anthony: yes the hold door open one was the hardest to justify LOL! It is behaviour that has been learned from hard lessons in the HDB flats. I stretched that one a bit... (Shh!)

It's more that these people hover in front of the buttons that actually bugs me. And then again, sometimes while holding the button open for you to exit, they get in your way and *cause* the hold-up they think they are preventing by being polite! Happens all the time in the lift of the hotel I stay in Tokyo. Let go of the button, dickwad, I'm not gonna get crushed!

rockstar69 said...

Recent bad experiences in a lift eh!!!

Bit like my last flight. All the bastards with too much carry-on baggage boarded late and traipsed up and down the aisle with their bags over their shoulders looking for locker space while simultaneously clocking each seated person with one, or other, of their bags. Surely, justifiable homicide here!!!

expat@large said...

People on planes! What's the rush? My next rant - watch this space.

Lost in Melbourne said...

The solution is simple Phil. Once the the button has been pressed and it is activated it becomes 'live' with the main power supply for the lift (in Australia 415 volt 3 phase power) routed via that button.

It might only be pressed once.

Same goes for the crossing button.

I feel it is part of the general degradation of life. We are all in it solely for ourselves these days. Everyone feels that they are so important and they have a higher personal priority, so you better not block their path or in 30 years time looking back on the disappointment their life turned out to be, they will blame that Expat guy in the building in Singapore who stopped them from getting the taxi that would have allowed them to get the insider trading tip that would have allowed them to quit the job as a cleaner at the Singapore inc head office and become the wife of the next son in the ruling Lee monarchy and they too would have been negotiating the pirate collection of offshore beaches under the cover of the moonlight reflected through the smog of the burning forests of Indo...

expat@large said...

This post is a revision of an shorter post on the old blog BTW.

In the first line of that one I suggested a 1000 volts into any button already lit!!!

expat@large said...

Also I have issues with people at the doors of the MRT.

Free Podcast

Related Posts with Thumbnails