Closed door policy
We live in a complicated, frustrating world, right? So there’s no huge reason to make it more complicated and more frustrating.
That part, like death and taxes, is taken care of for us.
But I keep encountering something that seems literally obstructionist.
I’m talking about stores, restaurants and apartment buildings that have big inviting double doors, but keep one half of them locked.
Twice a day I bang into a door and find that an establishment (bookstore, government office, whatever) has mysteriously decided to latch it closed.
It seems like a no-brainer. If the front door of your facility has two doors, leave BOTH of them open and available to your customers.
And no, it doesn’t help if you put a sign on the door with an arrow saying, “Please use other door.”
Your customers don’t spend their time reading your door before they come in. They just want to come in!
And anyway — why?
Rather than take the time to make a sign, just go ahead and unlock that door that you paid for on the front of your building.
So I’m figuring there must be a good reason for this practice. Any theories?
I actually found a discussion of this issue here, but the answers — wind control? fire safety? — left me unsatisfied.
Brian, it sounds like you need to get away from the computer and do something fun.
I agree it is annoying. Put the question to the local building and fire code administrator.
If there were a fire one of the doors being locked could potentially create a dangerous situation.
Although it’s not that big a deal to me, I still have to agree with you,
There’s no reason other than maybe that “other”door doesn’t work well, but if that’s the case, code should require it being fixed or replaced.
The great majority won’t care. Just watch people go out double doors. Most will only follow the sheep in front of them, funneling to go through the one door that’s open, rather than break from the pack and start going through the second unlocked door and cut down the wait time by half.
Laziness? One door is probably opened with a key, which is easy to do for the first person responsible for the start of business. The the other door probably requires one to unlatch a deadbolt of some kind from the frame and requires more a little more effort.