It’s not all about you.

Did you even notice that elevators have a tendency to increase some people’s sense of self importance?


And, no, I’m not talking about those jackholes who just have to get on before anybody’s had a chance to get off.

No, this is about the people who think the elevator exists solely to serve them. As if their little vertical journey is the very reason the building has an elevator, and that nobody else would dare use it until their sacred mission is completed.

My office is on the 5th floor of our building and the cafeteria and copier room are on the second. I pretty much always walk down, but if I’m feeling lazy, I’ll take the elevator up. (Our building layout is kind of odd, in that our school takes up the second, fourth and fifth floors – the first is assorted shops and the third is a medical/dental office.)I don’t know what it is, but people who get on at the first floor can’t seem to fathom that anybody else would dare to use the elevator until they’ve finished. They don’t even bother to look at the floor indicator to let them know where they are. I mean, if the elevator stops, it must be because it’s reached their floor, right?

Not hardly.

This is something I see at least three or four times a week. I’m waiting at the second floor to head back up to the office, the elevator stops and somebody gets out. (Unlike a lot of people here, I understand that I cannot get on until they’ve exited the elevator.) I get on and hit the button for the fifth floor. As the doors start to close, I see the person who just got off looking quite bewildered, almost as though the elevator has let them out on an alternate universe instead of just a different floor.If I’m feeling nice, I hold the door open button until they realize their mistake and get back in.

I don’t always feel nice.

How hard is it to look at the display above the door and see which floor you’re on? And if for some reason you can’t see that high, how about noticing that the button for the third or fourth floor (you know, the one you pressed) is still lit up? I’m not sure what goes through people’s minds to get them in this “the elevator exists just for me” way of thinking, and it really confuses me. Elevators are nothing new, and I thought everybody had a pretty good hold on the way they work.

Guess not.

I don’t know if this is just a Korea phenomenon or if it’s a worldwide thing, but I put it in this category since the elevator that triggered this bit of rambling happens to be in Korea. Does this happen where you are, too?