Poll

When riding the elevator, which protocol do you follow in regards to pushing the "close door" button?

Step 1: Push button for floor   Step 1.1: Close the door
Push the button for your floor, glance quickly, then push the close door button.
Peek around for possible riders, and if none, push the floor and close button. Otherwise hold the doors for others.
Push the floor button and wait it out.
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Elevators

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Tree

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Elevators
« on: May 06, 2014, 12:44:03 AM »
I live in a high rise apartment complex, and there are three elevators in the lobby.

One thing that strikes me here it the prevalence of jamming the "close doors" button. I lived just outside one of the biggest cities in America and the unspoken rule there is to push the button for your floor and wait awkwardly until the doors closed. If there was a chance to let somebody on you went for the door open button, or grabbed the inside of the doors.

I tend to get a decent amount of elevators that are just closing in my face, with the riders blankly staring at me. Part of it has to be my foreign face, although most of them have seen me around for the past 7 months.

Thus spoken, I do not miss the deathly silent "sollipsist's elevator ride" phenomenon back home, and find the locals quite amenable to a 3-10 second chat on nearly any topic.  wwwwwwwwww
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Stil

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #1 on: May 06, 2014, 01:53:19 AM »
In my area people hold all doors for each other, elevator or otherwise.
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old34

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2014, 02:12:08 AM »
Good topic. Lots of elevator stories to tell. Even have a book chapter on it, if it (the book) ever gets published.
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TIC is knowing that, in China, your fruit salad WILL come with cherry tomatoes AND all slathered in mayo. - old34.
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old34

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2014, 02:35:41 AM »
Story 1: Circa 2000. A fourth tier college in a third-tier city. They (the school and city) are gearing up for entrance of One-child Policy children into the university system. The schools had been ordered a couple years earlier to raise admission rates, build new infrastructure (classrooms, dorms, etc.) to support the influx.

I arrived at the college in 1998 and no building was taller than 6 stories, though they had a secret area on the roof 7th floor of the admin building. the reason being that building codes at the time mandated any building over 6 stories had to have an elevator. Six floors or less-the Chinese version of ADHC (Help for the handicapped) didn't apply.

So with city funds, they raised a 10 story building in 2 years complete with lots of space for classrooms (and a huge, useless 4 story atrium), and tacked on a single elevator to meet code. Six floors of classrooms with one, single elevator.

One elevator for a ten-story multi-use classroom/admin building just to satisfy code. This is in 2000.

The first day of new classes in that building, I'm waiting in the scrum at that single elevator. Three-by-three students begin to leave and decide to use the stairs. Their English wasn't good enough to mutter, "Fuck this!" but by that time my Chinese was good enough to know that's what they were saying.

I'm saying, "Fuck this," to myself, but under my breath.

And, "No way I'm climbing 7 flights to my next class. Class can be late. My students are still probably trudging up the stairs"

As the next flight down opens, and the mass exits, I find myself actually inside the next flight up. Old Professor Liu happens to be there, too. He's taught at that school for 25 years. He turns to me and says, "I saw you waiting in line. Do you need help with this? Just push the button for the floor you need to go to. Isn't this a great addition to our school!?!?"

"Yes," I mutter.

Further under my breath: "We have elevators in the U.S., and we'd certainly have more than one or two for a building like this." I decide to file this moment away for future use. That future use is now.

He wasn't FAO or Admin., just a nice old man, soon to retire, that was awe-inspired by the changes to "his" school and trying to be helpful and welcoming to the younger (then) FT. 

Elevator-use in China over the last 15 years would make an interesting research topic in mapping China's development in recent years.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2014, 02:45:39 AM by old34 »
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Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. - B. O'Driscoll.
TIC is knowing that, in China, your fruit salad WILL come with cherry tomatoes AND all slathered in mayo. - old34.
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Stil

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2014, 05:27:43 AM »
Nice story.

Reminds me. We have two elevators in one of the newer classroom buildings on campus. I've never seen either one of them operational in 4 years. Next time the bigwigs from the education board visit, I'll have to check them out.

Now the admin building, smaller with no classrooms..... Elevators are fully functional there.
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babala

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2014, 05:42:49 AM »
I was out at one of my companies the other week. The elevator was broken so I had to walk up about 7 flights of stairs. Two days later I returned and sure enough the damn thing still isn't working. I asked my students when the heck it was going to fixed and they shrugged and said they had no idea.

They are the third biggest elevator company in the world llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll llllllllll
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latefordinner

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2014, 03:27:15 PM »
anyone know what slood is? from the discworld wiki:
Quote
The discovery of slood is said to be one of the basic hallmarks of any noteworthy civilization. It is, apparently, easier to discover than fire, but slightly more difficult to discover than water.
...

The gods of the discworld have often heard the story of a race of people who lived on a blue world in the shape of a sphere, and how they watched massive asteroids slam into a neighboring planet, and then did NOTHING ABOUT IT because that sort of thing only happens in outer space... The gods find this story very amusing, if not very likely, as any race that stupid would have never been able to discovered slood.

It's not exactly a substance, more a principle really, but I would say that in China, slood is the idea that any container has limited space, and as such can only contain so much matter before it is full. When it is full, you can't get more in there. The special theory of slood would be that, in order to fit more into a full container, one must first empty it, at least partly. In the case of a crowded elevator, it is easier to stand back and let people get out than to just rush and push one's way in. A concept easier to discover than water, but not as difficult as fire. And our hosts are slowly, ever so slowly catching on.
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The Local Dialect

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #7 on: May 07, 2014, 03:27:31 AM »
I used to have the sketchiest elevator known to mankind at my apartment in Beijing. It would get stuck, it would stop with like, a six inch difference between the elevator floor and the building floor. It would close on you and not stop closing. It would be out of order constantly. We lived in a 20 story building, so walking was not usually an option. There was a slightly less sketchy elevator next to it, but the building maintainance would only run one elevator at a time because they wanted to preserve the elevator's strength or somesuch.

Eventually it was decided that we'd get a new elevator to replace sketchy elevator, and it was out of commission for about a month while the new one was installed. Cue very frightening episodes where the elevator door would open into an oblivion because there was actually no elevator in its place. When said elevator was finally replaced, it shuddered and scraped in a way that made me have some serious doubts about where they'd picked up the elevator installers and whose pockets were being lined with money that should have gone towards hiring people who knew what they were doing. I took to using the rather normal elevator in the adjoining building and then just walking through the adjoining halls to our place.

When we moved to a new place on the 6th floor with NO elevator I was actually relieved.

People did hold the door open for each other though.
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piglet

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #8 on: May 07, 2014, 02:22:11 PM »
We got stuck in the elevator with about 5 neighbours (including a pregnant lady and her hubby) for about 15 minutes last semester.It felt like eternity.Fortunately one neighbour called the technicians on his mobile and they rescued us.we weren't even late for work! Not knowing enough Chinese was a big drawback that's for sure.
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freegink

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #9 on: May 07, 2014, 03:09:34 PM »
Speaking of elevators, my apartment in Beijing was in a 23 floor building with 8 apartments in each floor. There are only two elevators.  In most of time, only one is running and the other one is broken. I lived in 19th floor. So I often take it as my everyday exercise by climbing 19 flights, more exactly 20, an atrium on ground floor.  bhbhbhbhbh
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latefordinner

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #10 on: May 08, 2014, 05:26:42 PM »
ouch!
I had a similar experience my second year here. 20th floor, 25 or so floors in the building, 3 elevators, never more than one working at a time. I would often take the stairs going down to work, but had to take my mobile phone because many of the lights in the stairwell were broken. I figured even if the phone didn't save me from taking a fall, at least I could call for help if I broke a leg.

make things worse, we often had water pump failures, only way to get water was to go down to the basement and stand inline with a bucket for one's turn at the single faucet. No way I was carrying that up the stairs!
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Escaped Lunatic

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Re: Elevators
« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2014, 01:39:35 AM »
Quote from: old34 on May 06, 2014, 02:35:41 AM
As the next flight down opens, and the mass exits, I find myself actually inside the next flight up. Old Professor Liu happens to be there, too. He's taught at that school for 25 years. He turns to me and says, "I saw you waiting in line. Do you need help with this? Just push the button for the floor you need to go to. Isn't this a great addition to our school!?!?"

This is when you could have said, "How quaint!  In the US, we got rid of elevators 15 years ago.  Everyone uses personal jet packs instead." ahahahahah
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