I do that, I also turn sideways. They have one of these at the closest Popeye’s. I figyre of the place gets robbed, it’ll give some detective a grin. Ok, so I’m weird. 
Do you do this before or after emptying the cash register?
[Ron White]
“I’m between 6’2” and 6’4", depending on which convenience store I’m coming out of…"
[/Ron White]
lightbulb appears over head NOW I get it. I was wondering just what that meant.
Anyways, this reminds me of a phenomenon I’ve witnessed at school. One A&A building has several sets of double doors, but I’ve never seen both in a pair open at once. People will file back and forth through one door, often waiting for traffic in the other direction to clearso they can go through. The other door isn’t locked, it’s just that no one uses it. I’ve done this myself, and I don’t get it.
That’s what I’m talking about. If I’m ever down your way, you’ll be able to recognize me easily. I’m the one that will bypass the herd of sheep and open the second door. And right before I do, I’ll say “Hmmm, I wonder if, just maybe…?”
heh. After emptying the junk food rack.
Where I once worked we had one set of doors that for about two years was a one open/one closed affair until they just locked the whole entrance permanently.
The reason was that one of the doors was misaligned and if you shut the doors simultaneously in the wrong way the two glass doors would smash against each other at the edges. They never broke but I’m sure if you tried it with enough gusto you could have created at least a healthy crack (and of course I always fantasized about both doors shattering simultaneously - fun fun). Never ones to spend money on repairs when a cheaper solution presented itself they just locked one of the doors.
A friend of mine works at a local deli type restaurant. They keep one door locked because of the way the wind blows through the strip mall. It takes the door with great force and smashes it into the concrete wall behind it. They just keep it locked when the wind is blowing.
Two theories:
-
The Door Locker And Unlocker Union negotiated overtime pay for unlocking both doors, for which the greedy capitalist corporations do not wish to pay.
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The Door Locker And Unlocker Guild handles all doors on a piece work basis (they are paid for each locking/unlocking action) for which the greedy capitalist corporations do not wish to pay.
I hate this as well, but sometimes there is a reason for it. In locations where the wind blows, with both doors unlocked they will sometimes pull open slightly and allow air through, which uses up a lot of energy. Or they’ll even bang and rattle. With one door locked, this doesn’t happen.
All in all, a horrible design. There’s a great book called “The design of everyday things” which illustrates more of these idiotic designs. For example, those glass doors with a horizontal bar on each side, giving you absolutely no clue whether to push or pull them open. to make it worse, some of the ‘fancy’ onces have hidden hinges and the bar right across the entire door, so you don’t even know which side of the door to push. So basically you’ve got a one in four chance of getting it right.
The way to do it is quite simple - you put the handle on the side of the door opposite the hinge. On the side that you push, you put a push plate. On the side that you pull, you put a pull bar. There - instant, intuitive understanding of how to operate the door. Yet you still see idiotic designs that confuse people.
The doors with hidden locks are another example, since stores always seem to leave one of the two doors locked, giving you a 50-50 chance of getting through the door correctly. If you must lock one door, how hard would it be for the designer to provide a visible sign that the door is locked? Or better yet, design the doors in such a way that it’s equally easy to unlock each door, and having both unlocked won’t cause strange banging or wind opening?
The doors at the Victoria bus terminal are another great one. The double doors there are designed so that one opens in and the other opens out. Basically, as you face the doors, whether from the outside or the inside, you would push the right-hand door and pull the left-hand door to open them. Unfortunately, they’ve just got horizontal bars across the doors, as described by Sam Stone, and there are no “push” or “pull” signs anywhere. So invariably, what you’ll see happening is someone will come walking up, try to push the left-hand door open (the one you have to pull), bounce off of it, try to pull the right-hand door open and once again fail. They’ll then generally pause, looking puzzled, and then either manage to guess the correct action to get a door to open, or luck out because someone else is leaving the building at that moment. I find that it provides some entertainment while I’m waiting for the bus up to the ferry to leave.
I blame the Fucking French
We have one door locked in the lobby of the hotel that I work at. God knows why the built the place with two doors thirty years ago- probably just to look more stately or something. But if you actually open the door on the right, you run a good chance of whacking someone and render the continental breakfast area unuseable.
As opposed to the French that don’t fuck? I didn’t realize that they could be grouped that way!
my shop we had one door locked for a long time because there was no closer on it. we opened it for deliveries and such, like when I move my coffee roaster but kept it locked the rest of the time.
retail stores that get shoplifted a lot will keep the door you push open from the inside locked to slow down would be thieves.
then there is wind, broken doors etc.
as for fire code, you are only required to have both doors unlocked if you have an occupancy that warrants it. Many places have double doors for getting big stuff through, but only need one open at a time.
At my last job they kept one door locked for no good reason, and put up a sign on it that said “Please Use Other Door ---->” However, at some point they changed which door they locked (because the receptionist complained that the wind blew her papers), but didn’t bother to move or change the sign.