The Baffling Bathroom Door

[oyceter]

Since rachelmanija wanted to know...

The door to the women's bathroom was replaced at my office a few months after I started working here, mostly to make the floor handicap-regulation compliant. The new door was a nifty automatically opening model; the door would open veeeerrrrry sloooooowly once you pushed it a little.

There was much confusion as people adjusted to the new door. Every time I'd walk by, I'd see someone pushing the door open, then staring as the door opened veeeerrrry slooooowly. You could just see the wheels in their head turning: "Is someone behind the door? Should I go in? Is our bathroom haunted? What to do, what to do??"

Then, of course, just as everyone finally got used to a self-opening door, it stopped working. And then it started again. And then it stopped.

The door is very heavy, so you have to put a good deal of force in it to get it to open if the door has decided not to work, but if it has, all you need to do is tap it a bit. I think if you hung around the door for a long enough time, you'd see people (like me) giving the door a cautious tap, and then staring in confusion as it refused to open. Or they would barge ahead, full tilt, and end up flat on their faces by pushing too hard when the door was already opening.

Cubicle life amuses me. So do doors (I have an apparently life-long history of conflict with doors. I do not get along well with inanimate objects).