In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works.
And (unrelated, but from the same article):
The [elevator] escape hatch is always locked. By law, it’s bolted shut, from the outside. It’s there so that emergency personnel can get in, not so passengers can get out.
From a fascinating & terrifying story about elevators, and getting stuck in them, by Nick Paumgarten in the New Yorker.
Once you’re done with the story, check the video.
Re: buttons — whenever I tell someone this fact while inside an elevator, it’s remarkable how often they want to prove me wrong.
And sadly, I have no defense other than, “I read it somewhere.”
“It is there mainly to make you think it works.” … and thus, give the rider a sense of agency?
I guess so – gives them something “constructive” to do to occupy the waiting time. Like dentists who talk to you and ask you questions – you can’t possibly answer them, but they just want you concentrating on something other than the discomfort of the dentistry.
By the way I am an inveterate close-door-button pusher.
@rush you’re welcome. hope the nabrel options work out.