My building has a main lobby floor and a basement floor. The laundry room is on the basement floor. The two elevators are fully functional today and clearly indicate, both on the button panel and with colored lights on the door frame, whether they are going up or down. The call buttons on each floor clearly indicate what floor each elevator is on and and, again, which direction they’re going.
Today was laundry day. As I’m riding the elevator down to the basement, the elevator stopped at the lobby. An elderly woman looks at me and asks “Going down?” I reply “Yes.” She then says “Okay,” steps on, and presses the button for “7″ — she wants to go up, knows the elevator is going down, but gets on anyway.
Sigh.
I get off on the basement floor, leaving my directionally-challenged fellow passenger to commence her upward journey in earnest, and proceed to the laundry room to gather my freshly-dried clothes.
I return to the elevator, which opens to reveal — wait for it — another woman who also decided to ride the elevator down from the lobby to the basement despite wanting to go up.
Forgive me for being too blunt — but elevators are not difficult devices to master. What is the problem with these people?
I know I have MBA graduates, CFA charterholders and Ph.D. economists among my readership. Can anybody point to any concept in information theory or search economics that would make it rational to get on a downward elevator when you want to go up? I can’t.
Or are we just becoming a nation of blathering semi-morons? Was I wrong in my last post? Should we all just turn Amish, because elevators are too much for us to deal with?
Sigh.
And for those who don’t recognize the title of this post, go read this immediately:
8 responses so far ↓
Link Gabriel Mihalache // Nov 13, 2005 at 6:04 pm
If she wouldn't have stepped on, then the elevator would have had to stop again at the lobby, on its way up, and she would have taken it then. This way, she gets on and she avoids the delay of another stop.
Upstairs -> Lobby -> Basement -> Upstairs
-versus-
Upstairs -> Lobby -> Basement -> Lobby -> Upstairs
This sounds like a problem for operations research. Personal note: I'm doing my thesis on operations research (Branch&Bound), although the main focus of my school work is economics, econometrics, cybernetic models and the like.
Link Gabriel Mihalache // Nov 13, 2005 at 6:16 pm
Another thought:
Waiting in the lobby–neat the door, watching the lights change–is more annoying than waiting in the elevator to reach your floor… psychologically speaking, in relation to impatience.
It's my experience that you get a little bit of satisfaction just by getting on an elevator… The time waiting to get on is more taxing than the time spend in the elevator. Or maybe I got OCD
Link KipEsquire // Nov 13, 2005 at 6:23 pm
Gabriel's reasoning assumes that you haven't already pushed the "up" button at the lobby and instead dove into the elevator hoping/assuming that it was going up. That definitely wasn't the case the first time and I seriously doubt it happened the second time either.
As for Don's observation, I should have pointed out that there are two elevators in the bank, and that the call buttons on each floor clearly indicate what floor each elevator is on and which direction they're going. Sorry for the confusion.
Link nordsieck_ // Nov 13, 2005 at 7:04 pm
What if, through experience, each of the women knows that the other elevator is probably totally full and will pass her without giving her a chance to get in?
Sounds ridiculous, I know, but that was the only thing that I could come up with.
My guess, thought, is that Gabriel is right the second time: the illusion of progress is more satisfying that the illusion of being stuck, even though the women are following a sub-optimal strategy.
Link J Philip // Nov 14, 2005 at 12:48 am
You are 38 and still trying to figure out women?
You are applying logic to women?
You are applying logic to an elderly woman?
I live with my 80 year old mother, my 38 year old wife, and my 21 month old daughter. Guess who makes the most sense?
My guess is that logic had nothing to do with it. She was stealing 30 seconds with a nice young man, liked the pattern on your sweater, or just reflexively entered the elevator no matter if you told her the next stop was hades. It could be 1000 other things foreign to the male mind.
I can see Spock's eyebrow raising right now. Nope, no logic. None.
[Kip replies: I guess being gay has its benefits...]
Link another david // Nov 14, 2005 at 7:26 am
Consider the idea that she (or he, as I've seen guys do the same) can now say that, "I've done my part. It's not my fault."
Instead of thinking about how a system is meant to work, or what steps would be most efficient, she took the route most likely to achieve success given minimal effort/thinking on her part; now, she can just switch off and wait…and complain now and then.
Link J Philip // Nov 14, 2005 at 9:03 am
[Kip replies: I guess being gay has its benefits...]
That reminds me of Sam Kinison's rant "Thank God for the Big F***ing menu we have down here! Thanks alot!"
Link Berniec56 // Nov 15, 2005 at 2:33 pm
I'm with Gabriel's 2nd post and the others who questioned that there was any logic involved in the decision.
I'm guessing that she –
a) didn't want to wait in the hallway and felt a sense of accomplishment by simply getting on the elevator,
b) thought your sweater was cute, or
c) who knows?
There was no logic involved here… just a tired elderly lady who wanted to share a quiet elevator ride with a nice young man in her building.
Another MBA reader….