I’ll take the stairs.
I prefer that over the crowd. 
I am in excellent health and I take the elevator up and down to all three of the floors in our building. I can’t get the forklift to take the stairs.
The solution is very easy. Get off the elevator at any low numbered floor where some “lazy” person gets on. Take the stairs from there. That’ll show 'em.
I use a wheelchair and I am amazed at the number of times other people use the elevator on a campus where most buildings are no taller than 3 floors. It’s obnoxious having to wait for an elevator because someone didn’t want to take the steps. I know there are exceptions, but on a college campus, most people should be physically capable of taking the stairs. The funniest parts are when I come to an elevator with someone already waiting for it to arrive. They are usually going the opposite direction, and I think it’s hilarious how people react. Some will stand there and let me go first, then continue to wait. Others have bolted for the stairs when they see me pull up, others offer to ride the way I’m going first. When there really are people who appear able, but have just had surgery or some other ailment, and they start trying to explain their condition. In that case I usually let them know before they finish their story that they don’t need to explain themselves. I despise having to wait for elevators since I don’t have a choice at all. I’ve never said anything to anyone, and I’m not going to. If people really do have some sort of physical limitation, then they have nothing to worry about. If someone is being lazy, then I hope they do think twice before taking the elevator the next time.
Oh chill out you wailing, teeth gnashing, ninny. I neither know, nor care about your mother in anything but the most abstract way. If she is more comfortable taking the elevator than the stairs, she should probably do so.
Further, had you dialed your moral outrage back about 8 notches, you could have read my post as a tongue-in-cheek poke at the OP. Obviously, you’ve elected not to do that, and instead are having a frothing at the mouth snit fit about a throw away comment on a message board.
I really hope you have your heart medication handy.
bolding mine.
I hope this isn’t too much of a hijack, and Dignan this is NOT directed at you, you just kind of put the nagging litle thing that was bugging me about the OP’s rant into a more focused description.
Now keep in mind that I am asking this as an old decrepit legitimately injured and limited in stair-descending mobility person. One who has spent a good solid 5 weeks of healing stuck in a wheelchair, and another few months on crutches, followed by about a year and a half of severely decreased function in the injured leg before it FINALLY settled into a reasonable facsimile of healed and “normal” (about 85% function on a good day).
And yes, I realize that I’m no longer forced into the wheelchair, and that I am very lucky that my experience in it was shortlived.
AT any rate, am I to understand, that what some of you are saying here is that the more young and healthy a person is, the less right they have to not take the more difficult and time consuming route EACH and EVERY time they move about a building? Otherwise, they are being “lazy”?
That a slim, young and healthy 20 something college student is never tired, or has never been up those flights of stairs (even if there are only three) just ONE too damn many times and has a right to save him/herself from being late to class by snagging the elevator?
Lazy, as defined by dictionary.com is as follows:
- Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness.
- Slow-moving; sluggish: a lazy river.
- Conducive to idleness or indolence: a lazy summer day.
- Depicted as reclining or lying on its side. Used of a brand on livestock.
Synonyms: lazy, fainéant, idle, indolent, slothful
These adjectives mean not disposed to exertion, work, or activity: too lazy to wash the dishes; fainéant aristocrats; an idle drifter; an indolent hanger-on; slothful employees.
With Americans at the top of the “work like dogs” foodchain…
(NOT that other countrymen going about their workdays are lazy by comparison, the point i’m trying to make stands for anyone laboring under normal “work/school/childcare/householdwork” type schedules)
cites
http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/saideman/news%20articles/2302/American-workers.html
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/26/077.html
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/iws/overtime%20study.pdf
…I have a really hard time seeing “takes a shortcut while going about their normal Workday (and what a hellacious workday so many of us HAVE as it is)” as “is lazy”.
Being a fulltime student, among whom many of them also work partime, is no indolent pursuit, neither is being an office drone or laborer. Like I said, I have a hard time seeing folks trying to make their long work or schooldays just a little bit less strenuous as “lazy”.
I also have a hard time seeing the justification for who “deserves” to ride that elevator and who doesn’t being based on how “healthy” a person is.
Sorry OP, I hope that wasn’t a gi-normous hijack. 
And my questions and points and disagreements were honestly curious ones, and not meant to be snide to anyone who has already made points in line with the OP here.
Did ANYONE who replied to your post view it as a tongue-in-cheek poke at the OP?
Hmmm?
Probably you should not plan on switching careers to comedy writing, if you wish to continue eating on a regular basis.
Nice work folks.
When I read the OP I was thinking, “how long till someone comes along and goes, ‘But I have gout, gangrene, a broken leg, bad knees, and a prosthetic but you can’t tell it by looking at me.’”
I just didn’t realize that 90% of the posts would be such.
You’d think the entire United States is a military hospital from the sound of this thread.
The OP is right and you all know it. Some people have to take long elevator rides and some healthy, but lazy, people slow down the end of the populated ride for their own convenience.
Of COURSE they’re within their rights to do it. That still doesn’t mean it’s not a little bit anti-social and selfish.
Interesting thought that occured to me over the weekend, as I recovered from twisting my ankle bout one-twenty degrees… (Bum knee, both ankles go out, but recover quickly, and various previously broken bones), is how many of us American have knee and leg problems, thanks to various forms of enforced exercise, as opposed to manual labor. Especially, for example, the jogging fad, which has blown my dad’s knees, shins, and spine. Wonder if that’ll catch up to us.
As far as elevator action goes, I’ll confirm, going down stairs is harder than up, and I only use the elevator on my sixth or seventh trip up and down a day. Sometimes, I get worn out, too.
The OP may be right that some people do it. The OP is, however, incapable of discerning between those who are healthy but lazy and those who have another reason for using the elevator. And what, precisely, is the OP’s excuse for riding the elevator?
If one wants to be judgmental, one can be judged. Goes both ways.
His excuse is that he works on the 15th floor!!!
You’re just being argumentative with such a silly statement.
Someone that makes that elevator stop on 2 to get off on 1 is pretty similar to what I encounter on the way home from work some days. 4 lanes of traffic through downtown Baltimore, all filled with cars. But, the guy who doesn’t want to pay the parking garage, or walk 1.5 blocks decides to stop at the curb, and just “run in” to wherever he’s going, forcing all traffic in his lane to merge into the traffic in the next lane.
The ONLY thing that’s different here is the legality of it. But, legality isn’t the issue. The issue is whether the laziness of ONE can justify the inconvenience of many. It’s clear that many people think that it does.
It’s what makes people say such intelligent things as, ‘you should get off on that floor and walk down the stairs yourself.’ :rolleyes:
CanvasShoes, I said that I hope people that ride the elevator that don’t necessarily need to ride the elevator will think twice when they see that I have to, because I don’t have a choice. If I ever am in a position where I am able to take the stairs, taking the elevator will be very rare. As I said, there are only a couple of buildings on my campus that have more than three floors (and a basement). I’ve taken the elevator with people with knee braces, or crutches, or have been sick, or are recovering from some ailment. I give people the benefit of the doubt. Statistics make it unlikely that a population of young, healthy people have a need for the elevator. I can someone being hesitant to go through a closed-in staircase, but that isn’t the case on campus where I have to pass a staircase or two to get to the out of the way elevator.
And?
Are you going to claim that a person with sound legs can’t walk down 15 flights? If so, where is the break point? Is it okay to ride the elevator down two flights? Is it okay if on your third trip of the day you ride the elevator down two flights? Is it okay to ride the elevator down one flight if you’re carrying a heavy box? How about if you’re carrying a fox? Lox? The Boston Red Sox?
I use the stairs all the time and have a bum hip. I enjoy hurtling down multiple flights of stairs in office buildings or hotels or hospitals. If the OP can judge others, I can judge him. I can do it. Why can’t he?
sorry, but I’m missing what the fuck is ‘inconsiderate/rude’ about riding the elevator in the first place. If I’m on the elevator and it stops at a floor, does it take an hour out of my day to have it stop there? why all the concern for the additional few seconds at the end of a ride vs. the beginning?
why does your ‘additional time waiting for some on to use the elevtor’ mean more than the other person additional time (to walk vs. take the elevator)? I’d wager a guess that it took longer to pen the OP in the first place than the person ended up waiting on the elevator for the ‘rude’ person to get on.
Seriously - what the fuck is your damage that some one (gasp) has the audacity to use a public elevator for the use it was intended!!! the horror!
Well, the only reason I can see for a person to care is if they are UNABLE to use the stairs, for whatever reason, and they are kept waiting a really long time by hoards of ablebodied people hogging the elevators, I can see them getting annoyed.
This used to happen at the college I attended - someone with a wheelchair would have to wait 10 minutes - making them late for class - in order to catch an elevator while boat-loads of ablebodied people pushed in in front of them. That pissed me off on their behalf, I must admit.
but that wasn’t the point of the OP, now was it? Nope, it was simply that in their eyes the person could have used the stairs and hadn’t that made them rude. I still don’t see that justification. I could use the surface roads instead of the highway, but using the highway doesn’t make it rude, even if I’m only on it for a mile or two, vs. 200.
Let’s not forget those of us with either temporary or permanent breathing difficulties that makes stairs difficult, either up or down.
And, you’re just being obtuse, and pointless to have a discussion with.
wring,no I don’t think the intended use of a public elevator is to bring able-bodied people up or down story. It’s to move people efficiently to and from floors that are otherwise an inconvenience to walk, such as the 15th.
Or to move people who are not able-bodied, or to move heavy objects. And you are subverting that intended design by taking it unecessarily for one floor.
The point is, you’re not making 1 person wait. You’re making an elevator full of people wait 30 seconds each. It’s a minor inconvenience to many people, repeated day after day, to avoid your own minor inconvenience.
You don’t have to do it, but it’s one of those “nice” things that pop up in everyday life that just help with the fabric of society. . .moving out of a parking spot quickly when someone’s waiting, letting the guy with one item go ahead of you at the grocery store, letting someone into traffic. No one’s required to do any of them. You’re not getting punished if you don’t and you’re not getting rewarded if you do. That’s why they’re called “nice”.
really? there’s some documentation that elevators are only to be used for travel of more than one floor? would love to see that.
I’ve heard of a “one up, two down” rule… an unwritten rule, to be sure, but a sensible one. If it’s a flight up, or two down (or one down, obviously), and you’re physically able, take the stairs. It’s good for you to get a little activity, and good in various ways to not occupy the elevators (less energy burned, fewer slow and crowded elevators, etc.)