Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Civil War: Enter and Exit Signs

Every time I go into a store, I realize there's a war going on in this country. That war is between customers and exit/enter signs. You know, those signs that show whether a set of double doors are intended to be enter or exit? Very important, since you don't want people walking through the doors and hitting each other. Isn't it? I mean, most of these doors are glass these days, so you can see someone coming. The central battle to the war is whether customers will follow the signs or not. I would say ninety percent of customers ignore the signs and go through whichever doors they want. Thus, the battle begins.

Manually-operated doors are a problem. It doesn't really matter whether you push or pull, but some stores are set up so they only open one way- presumably the way you need to go. But whether you push or pull the doors, you can still enter and leave through either one.

Automatic doors show the battle more clearly. Some stores have doors that only open for the side it's intended for. If you walk up to an exit door from the outside, the doors won't open so you have to do that awkward shuffle to the enter doors. Most doors have clearly given up the battle and will open either way, no matter how you approach them.

I saw one store that practically waved the surrender sign by putting "enter" and "exit" signs on both sides. If you're entering, both doors are labelled "enter." If you're leaving, both doors are labelled "exit." What's the point of that?

1 comment:

Maurice Mitchell said...

Yeah I usually ignore those. Especially if the Exit and ENtrance are on completely opposite sides of the door....or if they're right next to each other. I guess I just don't really care. LOL