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People don't know how to operate doors

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  • People don't know how to operate doors

    Howdy all, long time lurker, first time thread starter. I'll start off with one of my pet peeves: the apparent inability to operate a door.

    Background
    I work security at a building that doesn't open until a certain time in the morning, and there are people that will come in before then to set up, get an early start, whatever. So up until the building opens, they have to use an access card to badge themselves inside. This is where the problem begins.

    "My badge isn't working!"

    You see, our building has one of those automatic door openers for wheelchair-bound people. And apparently, most of the people in the building are really, really lazy. Go figure, right? Anyway, people will press this button and scan their badge so they don't have to touch the door handle (or whatever reason they do it). The problem with this, is that the door is locked by a very powerful magnet, and when people activate the door opening button, the door will strain with futility against that magnet, and will be unable to open even after the card is scanned, until the door opener ceases it's action. In other words, it works sort of like a Chinese finger trap. After the door fails to open, what do they do? Of course they try the same thing over. When they give up, they just stop and look inside at me, knocking at the door. I realize technology can be difficult sometimes, but come on, really? If something doesn't work the first time, why would you keep trying to do it the same way, hoping it will somehow magically work the second/third time?

    Unfortunately, even if they scanned their badge first, it still wouldn't work, because carding yourself in merely lowers the threshold of the magnet (so that it can be broken with human strength), and the automatic opener doesn't quite reach that threshold. And thus the Chinese finger trap game. And when I try to explain some of this to them, they stare at me blankly.


    "No, I think I'm going to just die here."

    And then there was this guy.

    See, our door has one of those sensors that automatically unlock the door when a person gets close enough, so that they can leave the building after hours without having to pull out a badge. Which I frankly dislike, because it makes my job somewhat dangerous, because if someone knocks on the door after hours, I'm forced to approach the door to figure out what that person wants. And if that person has two brain cells to rub together, that person could feign the inability to hear me until I got close enough to unlock the door for him/her.

    Anyway, this guy was here to do contract work moving furniture for one of the tenants of the building, before it opened. The problem this guy ran into, was that if you approach the door at a strange angle, or pause before opening the door, the sensor will either not see you, or see you, unlock, then re-lock before you have a chance to open the door. In any case, one of those things happened to him, because the door would not open. This isn't a really common occurance, but it's certainly not rare. I wasn't about to get up from my desk across the room just to show this guy how to open a door, so I called out to him to simply take a step back, and try again so that the sensor could pick him up. I even pointed it out to him, so he could understand that that little thing needed to see him for the door to unlock. What does he do? Asks me to come over and open it for him, and refuses to bother with the door.

    This guy actually waited five minutes until one of his co-workers came in from outside to leave the building. And then, ten to fifteen minutes later, after he comes back in, what happens? THE SAME EXACT THING.

  • #2
    That last is a guy who is paid hourly.

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    • #3
      Quoth Teskeria View Post
      That last is a guy who is paid hourly.
      that's what I was thinking too! What a jerk
      Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum! - Don't you dare erase my hard disk!

      This is Tech Support, not Customer Service.
      What's the difference?
      We're allowed to tell you "no".

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      • #4
        [Simpsons]Clearly the last guy didn't have a soul, so the automatic soul detectors in the doors couldn't detect him and open for him.[/ Simpsons]

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        • #5
          Argh, such stupidity. I can understand being confused at a glitch, but most of the time it's easy to get it working.

          I see the automatic sensor door thing so often. There's either the one that just stands there, one that gets closer, or one that can't read exit only symbols.

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          • #6
            Had a similar situation in my apartment building. To get from the garage into the basement, there's a new (last couple months) card reader that releases the strike plate. The electromagnet isn't strong enough to release the latch if the door is pushing against the strike plate, and as I was going into the garage someone had been trying unsuccessfully to get into the basement, and told me the latch wasn't working (I'm just a resident - how was I supposed to fix it?). I showed them how, if there was tension on the striker, it wouldn't release - just push the door in slightly (air pressure issues) and the latch will open.
            Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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