Lift riders, be on the lookout. Not everyone knows the basic rules of elevator etiquette that we all should have learned after a few weeks of experience. Those of us working or living in buildings with elevators are in serious danger of falling victim to the following infractions by others. This is just one in a series of rules by which to live.

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Just get the next one

A while ago, I mentioned that standing inside an elevator and holding the door open while there are other people inside, just so that someone outside can get in, is a somewhat rude gesture, because you are assuming that the other people inside are in a generous mood.

Pressing the call button on the outside of an elevator that is about to close with five people already in it, just so that you can force the doors open and catch this one instead of waiting for the next is extremely rude.

You have no right to hold up a car full of people just because you deem yourself more important. For the most part, elevators arrive, especially at the ground floor, every thirty-seconds or so. Would it kill you to wait for the next one? Really, no matter where it is you have to go, no matter how late you are for that meeting, catching the next car is not going to make or break you.

The elevators where I currently work are great, because once the doors on a car begin closing, the buttons outside the car will have no effect on reopening them. The button simply calls the next available car. In other words, it assumes that everyone in the car has the right to get moving, rather than giving preferential treatment to the person outside hitting the button. On most elevator systems I’ve seen, the opposite is true. You can often reopen a completely closed door if you hit the button before the car is actually moving up or down.

I wish all elevator systems were designed to favor the greater good, but until that happens, we should all do our part and simply wait a few seconds after a door closes to press that outside call button. The people inside may not thank you, but you can spend that extra thirty seconds waiting for the next car thinking about how you helped them get to where they are going just a bit faster.