The Door Close Button

There's nothing more irritating than to stand around and wait. That's why there's a "Door-Close" button in the elevator. Wouldn't want to wait an extra two or three seconds for the door to close on its own. Living in a ramped-up world infected with hurry sickness, we are perhaps ready to take Jesus' advice to take a break and get some rest.

Bet you've punched it.

Stabbed it. Jabbed it. Jiggled it. Wiggled it.

The DOOR CLOSE button. On an elevator. Might as well admit it. You've pushed it. You pushed it when you were feeling anxious, stressed and strained, when your Type-A personality traits were rising to the surface, when your impatience, excessive competitiveness, aggressiveness grew like thunderstorms skittering across the Doppler radar screen.

The DOOR CLOSE button.

"Type-A personalities have a whole subset of diseases that they, and only they, share," explains one of the characters in Douglas Copeland's 1995 book Microserfs. But how do these distinctive diseases spread? One point of transmission for these diseases is the DOOR CLOSE button on elevators that only gets pushed by can't-stand-to-wait-a-nanosecond-longer people!

The impatience begins while waiting for the elevator to arrive. Manufacturers such as Otis Elevator know that a good waiting time is in the neighborhood of 15 seconds, because at around 40 seconds ...