Take The Stairs You Lazy Bastards

Does disability include stupid shoes? Because I’ve had some that fit like a dream and halfway through the day hurt like they’re lined with razorblades (but not every time I’ve worn them, tricky shoes). So those times I’ve taken the elevator-- otherwise I can beat it to the next couple of floors and feel quite smug.

The general rule of thumb that I was taught long long ago, was you took the stairs if you were going more than “Up 1, down 2”. So 3 up to 4 is out, but 3 up to 5 is ok. Likewise, 5 down to 3 is out, but 5 down to 2 is fine.

As a computer geek, I’m often carrying heavy gear/bags, so that may not always apply to me any more.

I also rule this out if I’m going to meet someone for a metting that I know will be waiting at the entrance of their offices for me. (Up only)

-butler

Is the reason for this security or fire safety? I always assumed the idea was that you couldn’t reenter the main part of the building even in a panic, so all you could do is exit.

I work in a two-story building and there are still lots of people that take the elevator–both up and down. Pretty sad.

Stairs in office buildings and hotels annoy me. I always want to take them, but frequently you can’t get to your floor by using them. I usually wind up taking the elevator and feeling like a slug for it.

Dudes, hate to be the stick in the mud, but elevator/stairs might just be a personal preference you will have to deal with. Someone might have bad ankles that would be irritated by several floors of climbing/descending. I’ve known people who are afraid of stairs, instead of elevators. Some of us women are wearing some mighty serious heels lately and we might not want to risk a serious injury because of slippery cement stairs. Also, sometimes I ride the elevator when I’m with someone who heads that way and seems to want to chat. Or someone you know is already at the open door waving you in.

Sometimes I stair (mostly depending on the shoe situation) and sometimes I elevator in my three story building. Sure hope I’m not pissing people off.

Wy is everyone in such a hurry? Is it really an amazing inconvenience or annoyance to you if someone else takes the elevator? They may be lazy, but why is everyone so anxious to be somewhere else?

It’s probably both. I’ve worked in a building that had stairwell doors which required a proximity card in order to be opened from the the inside.

It wasn’t an unspoken rule at my college. Every fall people were quite nasty about it until the new underclassmen were beaten into obedience. I was attending a school that had been designed for (something like) 1 student in every 23 square feet and we were packed in at 1 student per every 4 feet of space. The parking lot was often an ugly scene as you can imagine. Rats in a big lab cage, we were.

Gangster Octopus, sometimes it matters because you’re in a hurry. Sometimes it matters because it’s just so freaking frustrating to be stuck in a teeny elevator with perfumed, chatty patrons that stops at every damn floor.

Well, considering most of the situations being discussed in this thread are occuring in office buildings and hotels, my guess is that people have important places to be, meetings to attend and things to do and aren’t spending the day moseying around like they’re on their way home from Church on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

I understand that, but it’s not like they are being delayed 15 minutes, think seconds. And I am willing to bet that most folks just have the anxiousness gene turned on and they really don’t need to be somewhere so deprately soon that a minute is going to ruin their day.

This happens all the time in my building too. Employees of a firm that leases the 16th and 17th floors are forever using the lifts to travel one floor. It annoys those of us who work on the higher floors, especially since we all constantly use the stairs to get between our own floors (levels 25, 26, 27). One day I asked one of these people why they didn’t walk up/down the stairs. As **Jadis ** suggested earlier, apparently it was for security reasons. They keep the doors to the stairs locked to prevent unauthorised access. The stairs can be used only to get to the ground floor.

Fuck yeah. I know what this thread is all about.

Sydney railway stations are generally decrepit 1920s affairs with fuck all disabled access. The stations are typically located in cuttings that run under a bridge which holds the suburb’s main street, and there are austere concrete stairs going down to the platform. Over the last five years or so, the railways have been installing elevators for the use of the disabled, elderly, and people with babies in strollers.

Dear ridiculously fit and strong built-like-a-rugby-player 20-something young men - USE THE FUCKING STAIRS. The elevator is quite small (two or three women with strollers can fill it) and is NOT meant to cope with two eight-carriage commuter trains arriving simultaneously and disgorging six hundred people.

I’m sick of seeing people who need to use the lift having to wait while it conveys a bunch of these lazy young cockheads up to the concourse.

The stairs are faster, anyway.

It might be a bit of both, but I’m not sure that there’s any fire code that requires it. The building I work in is 10 floors, but our company only occupies 7 or 8 of them. The stairwell doors have a security system on them so that if you work, for my company, you can get to our floors with a card key. So, if you enter the stairwell from the lobby (we have no central reception area, so anyone can walk in off the street), you can walk up and down, but can’t get in to any floors unless you have a card key. Same with the elevators…you can take the elevator to any floor you want, but it dumps you into a lobby that has doors that also require the card key to get into the office area.

So…in my building, at least, you’re not prohibited from re-entering floors through the stairwell, only restricted via card key. I wouldn’t think that would be allowed if it was solely a fire safety issue.

And FTR…I work on the 4th floor, and I ride up and walk down. :wink:

I’ll walk for 2 flights, but not more than that. I’m 99% able-bodied, but stairs (and running) just completely fuck up my lungs (exercise-induced asthma). I feel bad usually, but it’s just not worth it to me to spend 10 minutes catching my breath when I get where I’m going.

So really, I can’t comment. Stones, glass houses, all that stuff.

C’mon, dude. It does not ruin my day to have to wait a minute…it ruins my *minute * to have to wait a minute. Stoplights, people who can’t merge, school busses, and lazy-butt elevator passengers are all likely to incur my silent wrath when they hold me up when I’m going someplace.

Do you know how to turn my anxiousness gene off? I don’t have much money but I’m a great cook.

Yes, but pulling out and using your card key suggests some presence of mind that would not be there in a panic situation. So I believe the primary reason for locking the doors in the stairwells is fire safety.

But then what if the fire takes place in the stairway? Then wouldn’t people be stuck?

You’re fine. No one in a three story building has standing to be pissed at anyone else over elevator usage.

There’s nothing flammable in the stairwell; everything is concrete and steel.

Why ask?

On a similar note: If your gonna ride the escalator, leave room on the left (like they do in the UK) for those of us who prefer to get to the next floor at a rate faster than 2 mphs.