Should this bother me?
 

This has been driving me nuts ever since I started working at my current employer. We share an office building with about 6 or so other businesses. All of our doors have handicapped releases, which are those buttons that you can push and have the door swing open for you. Every public door, like the main lobby doors, the bathroom doors, etc, have them.

Here's what drives me nuts. Every morning, without fail, I see someone who is NOT handicapped in the slighest way push the button and then wait for the door to open for them! This absolutely infuriates me! Those buttons are not there to make your life easier, you lazy fuuuks, they are there to assist the handicapped! Expend a little energy and open the goddamn door yourself! Don't take advantage of the handicapped amenities!

What really annoys me is that many times they will stand there, waiting for the door to slowly swing open, while others (like me) stand behind them waiting.

Now, I should say that I am not handicapped, nor are any of my family or friends....so I'm not taking this as a personal offense. I'm not sure this should really bother me or not, but it annoys me to no end. So....should it? Or should I just let it go? I dunno about your peoples....but it just seems wrong to me.

My mother is handicapped, so non handicapped people using those spaces does drive me crazy, if I am with my mother, I will drop her at the door and then park elsewhere to leave that space for someone who really needs it. That's parking.

Is it obvious that the doors open without the handicapped button? The building I am in today, has a handicapped openable door, and revolving doors, I have a revolving door phobia, so I'll use the other door, it doesn't open unless you press the button.

Life's too short, bubba, don't sweat the small stuff, how is it affecting you if someone chooses to push a button rather than manually opening a door.

While I agree that it can be anoying to no end, being stuck behind one of these people, especially when you're in a hurry, it's really not worth getting worked up over. There have always been, and there will always be, people that are just that lazy as to stand there and wait while the door opens for them automatically, as opposed to simply pulling the handle.

My advise is to patiently wait, and revel in your superiority. Then get your ass in the building as soon as possible and get to work, because the deadline on the project that you've been working on is coming up fast. Oh...and don't forget that your SO wants to have a "talk" later this evening. See? There are so many other thing that are more deserving of your energy.

All the doors have very large handles and are not really that difficult to open.

Yeah, I know I shouldn't sweat the small stuff, and this really has zero affect on me, but it just seems extrondinarily lazy of them, and laziness really drives me nuts. I guess that's probably the underlying issue on this one.

I press the button whenever I see it.

I'm not handicapped, but I can tell you how many times I've pushed the button and it NOT work. I then walk over to the building manager and let them know that it's broken.

I also ride the new ADA compliant Handicap elevators that are being installed here in the subways of NYC, again for the same reasons.

Now, understand this, you and I pay for this, it should work. One day when I'm not able to get into some place because the button isn't working, I'm hoping that someone like me is doing the same thing.

Actually, it sounds like your issue is that they are in your way and you dont want to be patient with people. You don't want to wait the extra 5 seconds while the door opens.

So then come up with a bunch of smart ass comments to say to people when they choose to be lazy. "What, are you're arms broken?" They'll either send you a withering glare, turn around and smack you, or get the hint and start playing by your rules. :D

Are you absolutely certain that these people who are not opening the door aren't handicapped?

Sometimes I press it just to see if it works. I also figure that it keeps the mechanisms working properly if it's actually used rather than sitting there unused.

I just like to push buttons. So I always tap the handicapped release on doors, then loose paitence and yank the door open the old fashioned way.

Reminds me of the episode of The Simpsons where Homer's in the hospital and sees people being pushed around in wheelchairs. "Here I am using my feet, like a sucker!"

Laziness never pays. At the same time, random fury over minor things rarely pays either.

Yup. Me too.

What are you talking about? Laziness is its own reward. It feels great when you aren't doing something, especially if you'll never have to do it in the future.

Just because someone does not appear to be handicapped, does not mean they are not.

It bugs me too when non-handicapped people use handicap facilities. Last year my foot was broken, and for awhile I was in a wheelchair, and then on crutches.

One thing that bugged the hell out of me was people using the handicapped bathroom. Just because it's private, unlike the others. I'd finally wheel up to the button reach over to press it, and the door is locked. Then I have to sit there and wait... then someone comes out and apologizes. Whatever though.

The door thing bugs me sometimes, our building has two sets of double doors, and then on the outside we have two single doors with handicap buttons. I see people just go and use those doors for no reason. Then when we get into the building after the security office are about 6 turnstyles and on the outside are automatic gates for handicapped people. Again, someone will use this. I have no idea why. Our security officers will yell at people that do that, however. Since it gives the opportunity to let other people in since its a pretty wide gate.

Finally, there is this woman who takes the cake. Now I don't know her personally, but every morning she is in the same handicapped parking spot. Regardless of if the rest are full or not. Her tag expires sometime in 2009, leading me to believe it's probably for her mother/father who she drives around. The thing is our building is setup so it goes in a quarter-mile circle type thing. A lot of employees will do a few "laps" on their breaks/lunches. I see her speedwalking around. This just infuriates me. We do have handicapped people who work at our building, and she takes one of the 4 or 5 spots. Totally inconsiderate. My pass was good long after I was able to walk without the use of crutches anymore. Think I ever parked there? No. Because I knew how frustrating it is just trying to get around and not being able to get one of those parking spots.

I looked at our local law, and unfortanitly if you drive a person around who should have one of those passes you have the ability to park in handicap spots regardless of if that person is there or not. It shouldn't have to be law people should just know better.

Okay, i'm done. Just kind of went off there.

the ADA laws were amended not too long ago to include things like colitis, asthma, and other non-mobile handicaps. I have severe asthma and I could qualify for one of those little blue cards...it doesn't make it right.

Actually I have the same: it annoys me to see someone who's not handicapped (in a way that would inhibit them from opening the door in the usual fashion), use the buttons to open the door. I mean, I outgrew my childhood's fascination with pushing any random buttons I came across when I was about 6. I can't see how it can be "fun" in any way: "Oooh, a shiny red button. Look at it, it is ... so pretty. I ... just ... have to ... push it, oh, no, I .... can't ... resist, mommy mommy, may I!" WTF, people!? Get a grip!

I don't think people do this because they feel they should be able too (for whatever reason other than being handicapped). Maybe they can't see that it's meant to be used by handicapped people. Maybe they can't understand what the big deal is. Maybe they do it out of spite. Who knows?

What I find interesting is, why do I find it so annoying? I'm not handicapped. I don't care about more important things like hunger in Ethiopia and the hole in the ozone layer and poachers that are killing off the last of the Siberian tigers. Hell, I don't even stop to think what it would be like to be handicapped and *have* to use the buttons. I just can't believe how petty people can be, myself obviously included.

It is a pet peeve for me too.

Also, when I see people use the handicap parking and they are definately not handicapped. Some people use those cards in windshield from their grandmother or someone....jeez. Lazy bastards.

Do you get mad when people step up the ramp instead of stepping up and onto the curb –even though they don’t use a wheelchair?

Though my family is riddled with disability, I see nothing wrong with able-bodied people taking the path of least resistance.

Some people value energy rather than time. Yet, I can’t say that it wouldn’t make me want to smack them if I were in a hurry as they waited for a door to open. :)

I have other pet peeves. Things that bother me:
- People parking in handicapped spots who are not handicapped
- People leaving their blue handicapped placards on their rearview mirror even though it says not to do so on the placard.

We live in a world full of strangers; is that person hitting the door-open button lazy, or does he or she have disability that we can't see? Or maybe this is Back Spasm Day, but they had to come to work anyway and they're moving as carefully as possible. In situations like this, I cut a lot of breaks for people I don't know, which on your typically crowded city street is nearly everybody.

People I _do_ know, that's something else. I used to work Saturdays a lot in this one office building that had handicapped spaces in the front row. The parking lot was usually 3/4 empty, and there was this one woman who would always park in a handicapped spot rather than easily-available spots 20 feet further away, on the other side of the traffic aisle. I know, it was Saturday and those handicapped spaces probably would not be used. But it was so typical of her -- she was a corner-cutter who put out as little effort as she could get away with on the job and constantly tried to push her work onto other people.

I have a little bit of a flip side to this, it may even bring a giggle. I am disabled, and when I was at school, my arms were alot weaker than now. The school installed buttons and leather straps on doors so that I could get to classes easier. I felt very honored that they did this for me, but, it had some fatal flaws (chuckle). The buttons to release and open the doors were too stiff to press, even by "normal kids" If you did get the button pushed, they would take so long to open, someone would have already walked through it lol. The second problem, the leather straps on the smaller doors would require more leaverage to pull open, because they were mounted towards the center of the door, so I just ended up using the handle like every other kid lol.

Cynthetiq - Its a shame that more people dont use your logic. Thanks for reporting outages when you find a faulty part.

I cannot tell you how much it upsets me that people think that it's okay to just let it slide because only 1 or 2 people use the handicapped facilities. One day I'm going to need to use these things and I'm not going to have the wearwithall to follow up etc on it. Like I said, I'm hoping that there is someone else out there like me making sure that these things operate.

There was an elevator that was out for 2-3 weeks because they had to wait for a part. I complained about it all the time because someone had to bring it to the attention to the managers that it's unacceptable for that length of time. Any other building in Manhattan.. it would have been fixed within a few days maximum.

Here in NYC companies like Verizon get fined for not having working pay phones, but there is no penalty to buildings or owners who have ADA compliant hardware but it's not maintained and no longer working.

okay, now i'll admit that I do use the handicapped stalls because well the space... :) I have yet to ever encounter me inconveniencing someone because I was using it.

the doors don't bother me but people parking in disabled bays does...drives me crazy when they do that

dnd - Your right on the money with that one.

WE have a handicapped access door to our elevator on one side. They are fire doors, so one is next to the other, two doors facing each other 6 inches apart. Also, they have motors that resist you if you open them. To hit the button opens both at the same time.

As far as handicapped bathrooms, they are handicapped accessible, not for cripples only. Obviously, I would not use my greater leg speed to sprint past wheelchair kenny to use the head, but if it is there and no one else is waiting...

lets face it some things we do that don't bother us bother others. If we let that get to us all the time we are all gonna go insane. Does this particular thing bother me. No but it does bother me when some idiot kid who just have the handicap tag on their parents van still park in the handicap spot at Mcd's just cause they borrowed the car. Or you see and idiot in the handicap space because he "just wanted to run in" and makes other actually happy people park away from the door. Maybe I am just having a bad day though.

It kind bothers me when people press the button to open the door, but I never really say anything about it. Wherever there's a button-pressable door, there are several other non-mechanical doors, so I just take those. When walking with friends however, and they do that, I just rag on them about being lazy.

Same with elevators. It kindof annoys me when people take the elevator two floors away when the stairwell is right next door. My personal philosophy is if it's within four levels, I'll take the stairs. But I won't hold anyone else to that so if I'm walking with a friend who wants to take the elevator, I'll go with them.

While both of my daughters were growing up, my wife would very rightfully use the "handicapped button" to open doors when she had the stroller. My girls are now 9 and 6, and they got used to that button... I get frustrated when we go to the mall or grocery store now, and they use it to go in the door! We were blessed with two working legs and two working arms - USE THEM!

I agree with you, it pisses me off also, sounds like there are way to many lazy people around............

I know what you are talking about, but I get more annoyed by the doors themselves, as there are many buildings I've been to that have either handicap accessible swinging doors, or really old sliding doors that take a long time to move, so you have to wait on them, and they are the main doors. I'm all for things being handicap accessible, and I don't think that they should be off to the side - I don't like how some buildings have the handicap doors all the way to either side, with "normal" handled doors in the center, as I figure people in wheelchairs, or walking with a cane (or canes) shouldn't be forced to angle to get to an easier entry point - but I really think that they should be well maintained, and fast.

If you've been into a major hospital, I'm sure you'll know what I mean by fast motorized swinging doors. They have them everywhere. You just punch a button on the wall, and they swing open in a matter of seconds. That is how doors at the openings of buildings should be, but far too often they are very slow, which is what bothers me.

I don't have any problem with everyone using the motorized doors, just that they hold things up when the doors are slow... if the doors didn't take so long to open it would be any problem at all. Anyway, that's my tuppence.

I piss in the handicap stall and I'll press the button. big deal.