# Modern elevator "close door" buttons don't work. If you press it you're being played **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 18, 2008, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848 "2008-04-18T05:01:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/1 "2008-04-18T05:01:49Z")
Interesting fact. [From this story](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all) > [@](#): > > In the old system—board elevator, press button—you have an illusion of control; elevator manufacturers have sought to trick the passengers into thinking they’re driving the conveyance. In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/2 "2008-04-18T05:41:08Z")
[You don’t say?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_406.html) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Spacegirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@Spacegirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spacegirl)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/3 "2008-04-18T05:53:52Z")
The button works on the elevators at my job. If you don’t push the button it takes quite a while for the doors to close, but if you push it, they close immediately. It’s really nice. The f\*&$%# one in my apartment building doesn’t work though. Slowest elevator ever.\* _I usually take the stairs, but sometimes I don’t/can’t so I have to ride in the f&%_# thing. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/4 "2008-04-18T06:19:28Z")
The close door buttons work in all of the lifts in my office here. ---
**Author:** ![Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crocodiles_And_Boulevards)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/5 "2008-04-18T06:21:06Z")
Most of the elevators here have close door buttons that work. They also have the nifty capacity to cancel your floor choice if you mess up. For example, you want to go to 4, but press 3. Instead of having to stop needlessly at 3, just press it again and the light will go off. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Shroud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@The\_Shroud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Shroud)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/6 "2008-04-18T06:32:12Z")
Yeah, that’s one of those things that’s often stated as a fact without regard to all of our anecdotes to the contrary. Works in some elevators, not in others. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/7 "2008-04-18T06:32:25Z")
Close buttons are typically used when you put the elevator into manual mode. For example, if you are using the elevator for hauling cargo or moving furniture, the building operator can use a key to lock the elevator down so that the door will not close until you push the close button, and it will stay locked to whatever floor you take it to. That way you can ride it up, take the time to load it, and ride it back down. If the elevator is switched back into automatic mode, then the close buttons aren’t going to do anything, because the elevator doors are designed to close when certain conditions are met, and not before. I suppose you could design them so that they override the timer the elevator doors use before they begin to close again, but none of the elevators I use do that. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/8 "2008-04-18T07:25:38Z")
It’s rather amusing here where I live. Our close door button does not work. Yet if you press a floor button it acts just like a close door button. This saves me the roughly 3 seconds I would have spent waiting for the door to close. People give me odd looks for pressing 1 as I’m heading up but I can’t help it. But where I work the close buttons are all functioning. ---
**Author:** ![blinkingblinking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea5d25/32.png) [@blinkingblinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinkingblinking)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/9 "2008-04-18T07:42:26Z")
When I lived in Japan the first thing I saw which showed me that Japan was different to the rest of the world was that the ‘close door’ buttons always work in Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/10 "2008-04-18T13:54:26Z")
I have noticed they do, in fact, work in hospitals and nursing homes and such, where one imagines it would take longer to get people in and out in wheelchairs. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/11 "2008-04-18T14:22:34Z")
They were talking about elevators on NPR this week. The correspondent let slip a little secret that works on some elevators. If you push the button for your floor and the close door button simultaneously, in some elevators, the car won’t stop at any other floors to pick up passengers – it’ll go directly to your floor. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/12 "2008-04-18T14:28:06Z")
[QUOTE=blinkingblinking] When I lived in Japan the first thing I saw which showed me that Japan was different to the rest of the world was that the ‘close door’ buttons always work in Japan. [/QUOTE] Same thing in Taiwan. Sometimes people push the button right as I’m ready to go in, and the door hits my shoulder. Usually the clown hadn’t seen me waiting, but I still give him a hell of a dirty look. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-elevator-close-door-buttons-dont-work-if-you-press-it-youre-being-played/445848/13 "2008-04-18T17:41:04Z")
Works in my building. Not instantly, but there’s a long idle, and if it’s in idle, you can prod the close door button to make the door close.