Apparently, it takes about 80 of them along with a contingent of science and biology students.
And believe me, this is no joke!
For the past 3 months, one of my 4th year engineering classes has been held in a lecture hall that has two side by side doors. One is open and for some damn reason the other one has been locked. These doors don’t have any key locks. They are just locked down by a rod that jams into the door frame. The rod is extended from the door by a couple of levers on the edge of the door.
Now, this is a pretty busy lecture hall with at least 5 or 6 classes each day. At the start of each class, there is always a traffic jam at the entrance because of the locked door. You get people trying to go both in and out of the open door while others ram into the closed one thinking it’s open. This is a room used by at least 80 4th year engineering students, 200 freshman engineering students, hundreds of biology & science students, the professors, and the cleaning staff.
Well, today I said enough is enough and I opened the levers on the locked door. It was a miracle, the door opened! We had free flowing people!
It astounds me that it took 3 months before somebody (ie: me) unlocked the fucking door. And it didn’t even need a fucking key.
I hate (or maybe like) to be the bearer of bad (or maybe interesting) tidings, but did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, this was some sort of intelligence test?
After which, having been one of the few who figured this basic fact out, you may be offered a job in a secret agency for a verrrrrry interesting job?
Don’t bother replying. We already know where you are and will be contacting you soon.
((With apologies to LiveOnAPlane, whose ID we “appropriated” just for this once-only thingie, hope you all understand. Mods, don’t sweat the diff IP addresses, it’s OK.
I was going to make the comparison with high school kids, too, but more along the lines of the lack of common sense, of the failure to connect ‘everyone’s waiting to get through the doors’ with ‘only one door open’.
It’s also one of those little things which identify the good caretakers/janitors from the lazy ones. Some open every door up, turn every heater on, etc. Others do the minimum. Guess which one is also making sure the toilets are cleaned properly, that food waste is bagged up properly, windows are cleaned regularly, and that fire escapes are clear?
Before I unlocked the door that day, I also had the privilege ( :dubious: ) of fixing a printer that did not print. This was a printer in a computer lab used by my flock of 4th year engineer students. They, as I was, trying to finish off a couple of stupid homework assignments and print them off.
Well, people try to print, walk to the printer, see that its not printing, and dance around trying to figure why. People would retry printing again and again, but still nothing. Some people thought it was a paper jam. They called tech support to come and fix it even though the assignments were due in an hour.
If they were the least bit bright, they would have opened the printer doors and see that there wasn’t any jammed paper. For some reason, my flock has a phobia of opening printer doors to make sure everything is okay.
I just walk up to the printer, made sure that it wasn’t a paper jam, and turned the power off and on. The printer was fixed! All in the span of a minute.
My classmate and I used to always fuck with the rest of our class. If we got there early we’d sit right outside the door since it was often locked. Everyone would just assume it was locked and wait outside the door too until it was about a minute before class started he would just get up and go in.
It’s not hard to see this in action daily - any buildingwith double doors, mall with multiple doors (seeing everyone head to the single open door always cracks me up) and my personal favorite: cars lining up at a toll booth.
I cross a toll bridge every morning, and there are always at least 3 lanes open. Granted, one is for those of us with the electronic pass, but that leaves 2, side by side, with attendants waiting to take money or passes. Inevitably, one lane will have half a dozen vehicles in line and the other will be empty. Repeat at just about any toll facility you can name…
On the other hand, where I work, there are 4 doors between the inner vestibule and the main corridor - 2 opening in, 2 opening out, with only one in each direction open. I’ve tried the closed doors - they can’t be opened by mere mortals. I’m pretty sure the locks are controlled by the main security desk. I think the doors are held closed by electromagnetic locks. In any event, I certainly hope if there’s an emergency evacuation, someone remembers to unlock them, or employee departure will be severely restricted. Oh yeah - I work in a building *full * of engineers and scientists.
Local grocery store. Day before thanksgiving. Shoppers all in a rush to pick up last minute forgotten items. Two sets of double automatic sliding doors.
Me, I’m standing next to one set of doors smokin’ a cigarette watchin’ the folks go by.
Two feet to my right, in large, 12" letters covering most of the double doors is this sign:
OUT OF ORDER
Please use
other door
<----------
I watched 18 people bounce off those doors in less than 5 minutes. Some of them had to have seen the person in front of them hit the door, because they ran into that person as they were backing up to read the sign … in one case, three in a row! :smack: :smack: :smack:
