Opening doors

Have you ever noticed how people handle doors that need to be opened or are open. I had a lot of fun lately watching people and how they handled going through various doors. Some of the doors were into apartment buildings and others were into restaurants and shopping malls.

The one door handling that I have to say is my pet peeve is someone pressing the button to open the door and then as soon as door starts to open they pull the door open quickly, if you don't need assistance opening the door why did you press the button and not just open the door in the first place. Now another thing with the automatic door open button are the people that hammer on the button thinking that the door will open quicker if they do that. The door won't open any faster because it is made to open slowly to ensure that the person needing the door opened doesn't get hit by the door. I have seen people press the button thinking one door will open and the door they are standing in the way of is the door that ends up opening. The other thing about these doors is if you see someone press the button to use the door don't barge through the open door and block the other persons way.

Now here is something that I really don't like and it is when I pull open a door, unless I step aside I'm not opening it for you to barge through it. I was opening the door so that I could go through it. I had this happen in an apartment building and I actually told off the individual that was trying to push between me and the door that I had just started to open. This person had stood waiting for someone to open the door thinking that the person was opening it for them.

The most interesting is when there are two doors and one of them is propped open and you will notice that most people will aim for that door even if it means that they have to get in other people's way. If there are two doors side by side please try and use the right hand door. Basically use the doors the same way you use the roads in Canada. The right side of the door way is for you so open the right door. Yes, this is a challenge for some of us that are left handed because the left door is a lot easier to open but I still open the right door.

Have you ever watched people enter doors where there are two separate doors, one to enter and one to exit and the exit door has a do not enter sign on it. Watch and see how many people will use that door as an entrance and wonder why they are getting walked into by people leaving the store. These are the people that get really upset when they get banged and figure that they have the right of way.

So here are my tips:

• If you need to use the automatic door button, that is fine but don't hammer on it as it won't open any faster.
• Only walk through a door if it has just been opened if the person doing the opening has stepped out of he way or motioned you to go through the door.
• Use the right hand door if there are two doors.
• Watch if there are separate enter and exit doors because you will probably either get banged or walked into if you use the wrong one.
• Be considerate when going in and out of places.

Yes, doors can be a challenge when entering and exiting building but remember you aren't the only one using the door and you don't know who is watching.