Why is one side of a pair of doors so often locked? Often this is not apparent and I come up to a door, expecting to open it, only to hit an immovable obstacle. Especially annoying is that there seems to be no way to predict which side is locked.
Seems to me that, if you’re going to all the trouble of putting in two doors, you might as well let us use two doors…
Reason for two doors: Oversized deliveries and other occassions when a single witdh door won’t do.
Reason to lock on 99% of the time: Save on heating/AC costs. Half the doors being open means only half the air is exiting the building.
I will admit it’s annoying when the doors aren’t labeled though.
Just think of it as the first question of your interview. 
Usually, the key goes in only one of the doors. After the one door is unlocked, the other door has levers that are only accessible from the edge. So always go for the door with the locking mechanism.
Why only one door, the employees are too lazy to take the time to open the second door. After all, they know which door is unlocked when they unlock it. From a fire safety point of view, both doors should be unlocked. Then again a minimum-wage clerk is usually not bright enough to think about customers’ safety.
I think about safty, just dont care. Look for the keyhole. Pull.
I agree with this, and I know there are many jurisdictions where it is against the fire code to lock an exit so that you can’t open it from the inside. I have mentioned this to a few merchants when I have found myself in a little bit of a hurry and almost smashed my face into the locked side. Of course I always think that I’m just pushing when I should have pulled (or vice-versa) and then I waste a few more seconds pulling on the same door. Finally I realize that they have the door locked, and I turn to the nearest on-looking employee, put on my nastiest attitude and say “I guess it’s a good thing there wasn’t a fire behind me”.
This is a load of Oscar Meyer Bologna. Tell X number of people to exit through a single door, and that door will stay open twice as long as a double door would passing the same number of people. Why do you think they open both doors of a movie theater when the movie is over? To get people out in half the time (as compared to having only one door open). Moreover, as far as business go there is usually two-way traffic moving through the doors, and when one door is locked this results in a line of people waiting for the incoming traffic to clear before the outgoing traffic can exit, again keeping the single door open twice as long.
I’ve long wondered about just this perplexing problem! I’ve also arrived at the conclusion that the people who unlock one of the doors are too lazy to unlock the other one.
After all, day after day they see people coming in and going out, so (they figure) why bother unlocking both?
I guess they figure that a few bruised noses is worth the cost of saving a few seconds per day.
I work at Publix… being the first supermarket to have automatic doors, they are still quite proud of this asset. The doors are ALWAYS unlocked during business hours. Basically, our store will do anything to keep customers happy, so they don’t lock any needed doors. They’ll ever turn off the Musak if one customer says it’s bothering him/her, and turn it back on after they leave.
Plus, it’s worth a couple of laughs
This is exactly why people keep voting against raises in minimum wage.
:rolleyes:
And just WHAT are you pulling while you look through that keyhole? smirk Or would “jerking” be a better word than “pulling”?
This is such a simple solution!!! Thank you so very much!!!
(personal to Troy: He said look for the keyhole, not through it! Doh!)
More often than not, seems like it’s the right-side door that’s open. Drives me crazy 'cause I’m left-handed and instinctively go for the left-hand door first. Sigh…
(And I always pull that “Midvale school for the gifted” number as well…)