# Open Doors + Cold Weather + Idiots = Unhappy Soup **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 15, 2003, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800 "2003-01-15T19:31:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Soup\_du\_jour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Soup\_du\_jour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_du_jour)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/1 "2003-01-15T19:31:26Z")
At my college, the builders were kind enough to put in a special way to open doors for the handicapped. You know, those big square buttons that open the doors so that all can have access to the building quickly and easially. Also, as in many cities where it gets cold, there are two sets of double doors at every enterance, the idea being that at least one set of doors are closed at all times, so that blasts of winter air don’t come marauding through the nice, warm building. Unfortunately, some of my (non-handicapped) comrades have taken to abusing the system, with non-desirable results. They push the button, not out of need, but out of laziness. This wouldn’t be all that bad, except these particular doors stay open for about a minute at a time. In cold weather, this gets particularly annoying. So, I implore the denizens of the SDMB to stop (or refrain from) leaving doors open, and therefore blasting cold air throughout buildings simply because you might be too lazy to open a door. Weak rant? Yes. Important? No doubt. And, for the sake of using the new smiley, :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![CRorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CRorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CRorex)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/2 "2003-01-15T19:32:46Z")
Ok, how the HELL am I supposed to open the door when I’m carrying two cases of beer and a case of hard liquor. ---
**Author:** ![Soup\_du\_jour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Soup\_du\_jour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_du_jour)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/3 "2003-01-15T19:34:50Z")
Okay. I forgot to add that carrying stuff and pressing the button is okay. But, if you’re just lazy, than shame on you. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/4 "2003-01-15T19:35:05Z")
I saw somebody use one of those automated door-openers going into the women’s restroom at work, and I thought, “how dang lazy do you have to be? Just push the door open.” ---
**Author:** ![sWitchazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@sWitchazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sWitchazel)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/5 "2003-01-15T20:49:51Z")
I hate to admit that I have used that button in the past when I didn’t need to. I swear I don’t do it anymore because it did occur to me how incredibly lazy it was. Please consider, though, that some people aren’t complete dolts. They just love the technology in a simple pleasures kind of way. “Push button, door opens. Heh heh.” ---
**Author:** ![Goober\_McFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/49beb7/32.png) [@Goober\_McFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Goober_McFly)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/6 "2003-01-15T20:59:41Z")
What we need is a button that closes the door. Very, very fast. And with 20 tons of force. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/7 "2003-01-15T21:14:37Z")
There was a building at my former college that everyone had classes in. You had two choices to get into the building: through the front which required you to walk through a crowd of roughly eight hundred people smoking the nastiest cigarettes ever rolled, or the side door which had one of those handicapped buttons. It took three strong men and a boy to pull that door open without using the button. So everyone who didn’t want a severe allergy attack before class would use the side door. I remember it breaking like that maybe four times. The point of this is, it isn’t always laziness that sends able-bodied people through those doors if the conditions listed above exist. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/8 "2003-01-15T21:20:02Z")
I hate using those things because they’re slower than I am - and if I want to get out of the weather, I sure don’t want to be standing there waiting for a stupid door! ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/9 "2003-01-15T22:06:29Z")
I use the handicapped door-openers not out of laziness, but out of sheer primate button pushing joy. ---
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/10 "2003-01-15T22:23:02Z")
My kids love to use the button to open the door (I really wish they would grow out of the habit – they’re **eight** now). Perhaps some children _never_ grow up… ---
**Author:** ![LVgeogeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b19c9b/32.png) [@LVgeogeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LVgeogeek)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/11 "2003-01-15T23:02:38Z")
I absolutely think handicapped button pushers are lazy, except for the handicapped or people carring a lot of items… these lazy people will stand there and wait for the door to open longer than it would take to push/pull the door open themselves and be out/in the building. PS. by the way I am new here 🙂 and I have enjoyed reading these posts here at the BBQ pit for a few months now. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/12 "2003-01-15T23:04:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ethilrist \* > \*\*I saw somebody use one of those automated door-openers going into the women’s restroom at work, and I thought, “how dang lazy do you have to be? Just push the door open.” \*\* Actually in that case I would do it. I’d probably hip-check the button and go in. Why? Because I don’t like touching the door of the restroom. I get ooged out by fecal bacteria and try to avoid it if there is a convenient way to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/13 "2003-01-15T23:32:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Goober McFly \* > \*\*What we need is a button that closes the door. Very, very fast. And with 20 tons of force. \*\* Actually, one of the doors here in the Comp. Sci. department broke that way… dangerous! I missed it, but apparently for a while the support staff was putting trash cans in the doorway and getting them slammed 10 metres down the hallway. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2003, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/14 "2003-01-15T23:47:13Z")
> [@](#): > > _by Soup_ > Open Doors + Cold Weather + Idiots = Unhappy Soup Poor math. The answer to the equation is **Cold** Soup. And, following Aristotelian logic, that means you are **Gazpacho.** Which logically means you are a sock puppet. Don’t you dare move, I’m going for a mod. Sua ---
**Author:** ![Soup\_du\_jour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Soup\_du\_jour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_du_jour)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/15 "2003-01-16T00:10:48Z")
Darn. My secret is out! 😃 Actually, I just realized that your name could be rearranged to spell **Nate’s Soup**! If there’s a guy out there named Nate who makes really good cold Gazpacho, than all three of us are in deep trouble. If I go down, you’re coming down with me! BWAHAHAHA! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/16 "2003-01-16T02:06:48Z")
Well, it wouldn’t hurt to put a little note next to the button that sez “Please don’t use me unless you have to – the door closes slowly and wastes heat.” ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/17 "2003-01-16T06:12:18Z")
Well, you got your revenge in the doors on the lower floor of the McLennan Library. They are “assisted” doors, which means that when you pull the door open, a little motor kicks in and opens it the rest of the way. It also opens the other door, which, if you are standing in the way 95% of door-operating humanity stands when opening a door, whips open and smashes you in the shoulder. I’ve had my glasses knocked off at least once. Not pleasant. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/18 "2003-01-16T18:33:01Z")
Signs never work. Never. Ever. I used to work in a library with doors like that. The button would open both doors, two sets, like an airlock, except both pairs of doors would open at once. Each time the happy red button was pressed, an eight food wide by eight foot deep hull breach would open in the building and stay that way for ten deadly seconds. My desk was right next to them, next to a heating vent. About five feet away, in fact, from those frigging doors. You can imagine what my winters were like working there. Hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold. “Mommy, why is the nice man with the pony tail tossing his cookies in the potted plants?” ---
**Author:** ![Soup\_du\_jour](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Soup\_du\_jour](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soup_du_jour)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/19 "2003-01-17T00:28:44Z")
Exactly how I feel! Doesn’t sudden, vast changes of temperature cause highways to crack open, or something? ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/open-doors-cold-weather-idiots-unhappy-soup/148800/20 "2003-01-17T13:10:52Z")
Nearly cracked me…I still get nauseous thinking about it and it’s been about 7 years since I’ve worked there. I’m a one temperature sorta guy.