Lifts
This is a public service announcement. Calling on all ableds between the ages of 7 and 80. Refrain, please, from using an elevator gratuitously. The most irritating thing for disabled people has to be the inability to use an elevator that is not usable in a timely fashion because it is overly relied upon by masses of perfectly able people. In my past life I never took an elevator to switch floors, provided it was going up, or down, one floor. Having witnessed, first-hand, the abuse of this modern convenience, from a disabled person's point-of-view, I will commit to pushing out my acceptable stair-climbing barrier to two floors. As this is intended as a public service announcement, I will share this on a variety of social media forums and I'd urge you all to do likewise.
I have identified two different possibilities for improvements. In my last klinik in Bad Segeberg, there was a typical elevator system of 3 parallel lift shafts and 6 floors. To call a lift, one had to simply indicate the direction in which one intended to go, up or down, '^' or 'v', sort of. Once pressed, the button turned red to indicate that it had been pressed and, therefore, didn't need to be pressed again. One annoying habit that many ableds had, was to press both buttons, thinking, I'm sure, that their chances of getting a lift faster, would be increased. Let me assure everyone that it does no such thing. Every imaginable algorithm for such a system would only see an elevator stop at your current floor if it was going in the direction that was indicated by your button-press, so if the double-button-presser would get a lift faster than they otherwise would have, it will be going in the opposite direction. Apart from the obvious efficiency problems introduced, by this foolishness, it's incredibly annoying to the fellow passengers, inside and outside the lift. Two weeks ago, one of the two main lift shafts in the 8-floor Reha Hamburg fell out of commission, leaving me with problems as one of the few wheelchair persons. One particular incident stands out as maddening. I was waiting on the lift on the ground floor, I had pressed '^', then this fellow joined me. After a brief moment he had clearly decided that enough was enough, so he pressed 'v', which was briefly followed by a sound of a lift door closing from the elevator shaft which emboldened this person to exclaim "aha!" as though he had saved the day.
Since I've been discharged I have encountered the next problem that I hope to help resolve. These past two weeks have been a real eye-opener. I'm referring to the problem of lazy so-and-sos who are unwilling to walk a flight of stairs and would sooner wait at the lift, on the first floor for example, than to take the short walk to the second floor. I will consider this a success, if we can convince enough people that choosing to walk instead will see benefits, not just to their health, but also to the mental health of their fellow man, especially, as if they didn't have enough problems, the wheelchair confined.
I have identified two different possibilities for improvements. In my last klinik in Bad Segeberg, there was a typical elevator system of 3 parallel lift shafts and 6 floors. To call a lift, one had to simply indicate the direction in which one intended to go, up or down, '^' or 'v', sort of. Once pressed, the button turned red to indicate that it had been pressed and, therefore, didn't need to be pressed again. One annoying habit that many ableds had, was to press both buttons, thinking, I'm sure, that their chances of getting a lift faster, would be increased. Let me assure everyone that it does no such thing. Every imaginable algorithm for such a system would only see an elevator stop at your current floor if it was going in the direction that was indicated by your button-press, so if the double-button-presser would get a lift faster than they otherwise would have, it will be going in the opposite direction. Apart from the obvious efficiency problems introduced, by this foolishness, it's incredibly annoying to the fellow passengers, inside and outside the lift. Two weeks ago, one of the two main lift shafts in the 8-floor Reha Hamburg fell out of commission, leaving me with problems as one of the few wheelchair persons. One particular incident stands out as maddening. I was waiting on the lift on the ground floor, I had pressed '^', then this fellow joined me. After a brief moment he had clearly decided that enough was enough, so he pressed 'v', which was briefly followed by a sound of a lift door closing from the elevator shaft which emboldened this person to exclaim "aha!" as though he had saved the day.
Since I've been discharged I have encountered the next problem that I hope to help resolve. These past two weeks have been a real eye-opener. I'm referring to the problem of lazy so-and-sos who are unwilling to walk a flight of stairs and would sooner wait at the lift, on the first floor for example, than to take the short walk to the second floor. I will consider this a success, if we can convince enough people that choosing to walk instead will see benefits, not just to their health, but also to the mental health of their fellow man, especially, as if they didn't have enough problems, the wheelchair confined.
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