Friday, June 09, 2006

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Huh, how about that?! I just did a search in Google: " thermostats elevator 'door open' button 'not hooked up' " I really expected it to be too many search terms to yield any results, but I got 3 items, one of which had a very long discussion of these and other "mechanical placebos". The responses here do make the good point that the Door Open buttons always serve a definite function in Firefighter's Operation mode. 7:20:47 PM    comment []

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The technique described below would not be necessary, of course, if the Door Close button on elevators actually did anything. I worked for Otis Elevator for years, and learned a little secret of the elevator industry: the Door Close buttons are rarely hooked up. The feeling is that you get better performance if the car dwells for a while at the floor. I haven't studied this, but it sure doesn't feel true to me. At the Lobby, yes, definitely. But for non-lobby traffic, usually there is a clutch of people waiting for the elevator, they get on when it arrives, and nobody else gets on before the doors close. I read once that the majority of thermostats in office buildings were not hooked up. It was a deliberate ruse to pacify people--apparently complaints about the temperature dropped greatly if people believed they could alter the temperature, even if there attempted alteration produced no result. If I didn't know about the elevator Door Open buttons, I would be sure that was an urban legend (I'm not sure it isn't, but I'm willing to believe it may be true.) 7:20:46 PM    comment []

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It can be annoying, when you have entered an elevator that is parked at a floor (typically the lobby), and, just as the "dwell-time" delay is ending, and the doors begin to close, someone rushes toward the elevator--not fast enough to get through the doors on their own, but close enough that someone on-board feels obliged to press the Door Open button, causing the doors to re-cycle again, and delaying your trip up. It gets more annoying when it happens repeatedly on the same elevator trip. I'm pretty sure it is also generally less efficient--from a big-picture traffic-handling (i.e., throughput) perspective. Yet it seems un-mannerly to refrain from attempting to hold the train for one's fellow. I have a solution. After registering your floor call in the elevator, move as far away as possible from the button panel. That way, when you see someone rushing toward the elevator, instead of reaching over and hitting the Door Open button, you can just stand there and look sympathetic as you watch, helplessly, while the doors slide together, and your brief elevator journey begins, without undue delay. Or for extra-credit, make a show of reaching, ineffectually, toward the panel, as the doors close and you take off. 7:20:45 PM    comment []

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A colleague told me she had been told by an acquaintance in the industry that airfares are sometimes lower at night than during weekdays. The underlying logic being that deep-pocketed businesses do their booking on weekdays, whereas price-sensitive consumers are more likely to search at night or on the weekend. The story has some hallmarks of an urban legend--superficial plausibility. The airline industry does do some funky things with fares--just the kind of baffling situation that might incubate an urban legend. It just seems too easy to see through for industry--start having corporate travel agents work night shifts. 7:20:41 PM    comment []