Precisely because it could lead to fisticuffs, I really doubt anyone would habitually do it in an elevator right up against the people they’re so blatantly taking inexcusable steps to screw over. Even in New York. I mean, what do you think is gonna happen?
“Hey, you just cancelled my floor.”
“Tough shit”
“Well, here, I just cancelled your floor.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.”
On a regular basis, as just a staple of elevator life? I think people are able to smooth over their daily interactions better than that.
It is my understanding that in large buildings with many elevators, there is complex software that attempts to deliver elevators in a manner that moves the most people as quickly as possible and the algorithms are so complex that their efficient design is somewhat of an art. I have no cite on this, any experts around?
Anyway, I was thinking that the use of a “cancel” button and even the prospect of its use would complicate such algorithms dramatically.
Actually, this is usually done by kids too young have yet developed an interest in “hot babes”.
They usually don’t do this when adults are in the elevator; only when they are alone, and just before they get off at their floor. (Which explains the situation of the OP: stepping onto an empty elevator and finding a whole bunch of buttons pressed.)
Elevator companies have developed experimental software that tries to detect this situation, and then resolve it (by remotely canceling all the buttons). They do this by comparing the estimated number of passengers on the elevator (based on the weight in the elevator cabin) vs. the number of buttons pressed.
But, as Shamozzle says, elevator operating software is already complicated, and this adds another complication. It’s difficult to set the weight vs. buttons pressed parameters correctly. And if they are set too aggressively, the results are disturbing to passengers: all the buttons go off, and the elevator cabin halts at the next floor. They also caused problems when a single passenger legitimately has to stop on each floor; for example, night-time security guards making rounds, or early-morning postal carriers delivering mail.
They’ve also considered evaluating button presses: pressing buttons very quickly, and in sequence is typical of kids fooling around. But it also happens during morning rush times, when a whole bunch of passengers get on at once & select their floors.
Possibly a combination of these might work:
[ul]
[li]elevator cabin contains less than 300 pounds of passengers, and[/li][li]more than 4 floors are selected, and[/li][li]selected floors are in numerical sequence, and[/li][li]floor buttons were pressed within 1/2 second of each other.[/li][/ul]
But apparently, this isn’t a serious enough problem for elevator companies to be concerned about – they don’t think such a feature would make building owners more likely to buy their brand of elevator.
The same argument could be made about line cutting, and yet it still happens regularly.
A more likely scenario is
“Hey, you just cancelled my floor”
"Hey, I didn’t notice you in here . . . "
or
“Hey, you just cancelled my floor”
“Sorry dude, I hit the wrong button . . .see ya later!”
or
“Hey, you just cancelled my floor”
“baka baka bijay baka baka bijay”
Watch the behavior of people who cut lines. It’s rare that they blatantly just cut the line and say “tough ____.” Instead, they pretend to be doing it inadvertently. If confronted, they claim it was a mistake.
It would also happen that some peoples’ floors would be cancelled as a result of a legitimate mistake, but they would think it was intentional.
You’re assuming the only people who would abuse this are the all-the-button-pushers. I’m suggesting that a different sort of elevator prank would develop. And they still might do it right before getting off. Get on an elevator, ride it to your floor, quickly cancel someone/everyone else’s floor and hit the top/bottom floor as you get out. The other people in the elevator might not notice (probably more subtle to only cancel one or two out of a crowded elevator) and not re-select their floor. Especially if they’re in the back.
I used to work in a building that had a lady with Tourette’s Syndrome. She would apologize profusely, explain her malady, then press every button. She was nice enough, and we just learned to let her have her own elevator. I even asked a couple times if I could get the next elevator because I was in a hurry, and she’d stay behind.
It was pretty funny silently watching unknowing sales people walk into the elevator with her.
Tourette’s isn’t all about swearing. At another place I worked with a guy who would get a sudden urge to run. After a few months of mayhem, he was finally “assigned” a hallway where he could do it. Boy did he suffer just getting there.
I have Tourette’s and it sucks. I don’t have the swearing either (it’s actually one of the more rare symptoms) but I have all sorts of weird tics and urges. In a car sometimes I have to time my breathing to the telephone poles. :rolleyes:
I can believe the elevator thing. I know that I have returned to a room I left minutes earlier because I had scooted a piece of furniture a fraction of an inch, and in my mind, had therefore “bunched up the floor” under the legs and I could almost feel the pinching sensation and could NOT stop thinking and obsessing about it until I could return to the room and lift the leg of the table or whatever to “release” the pinched “floor”. :rolleyes:
Why not just design the elevator so that no more than five floors (or whatever amount is reasonable, depending on typical traffic/usage patterns) can be queued at a time? Only after the elevator has arrived at a certain floor can the next one in sequence be entered.
I have an idea. It used to be elevators had a guy standing there operating the elevator. You would say “5 please” and he would hit the proper button. So nobody could hit all the buttons or cancel other peoples’ calls.
Since it’s expensive to hire an elevator operator and pay him a living wage plus reasonable benefits, you set up a camera, a microphone, and a speaker. You link it to some guy in India or the Philippines who in turn will activate controls which have the effect of sending the elevator to the right floor. Sure you may have to repeat yourself a few times. But on the other hand, they could give the guy a daily weather report for your city so he can say “hot enough for ya?” or whatever is appropriate.
