You’ve forgotten how to use an elevator. Lift your game

The WFH phenomenon born of the global pandemic has left an indelible mark on our day-to-day lives. Working from home has likely sharpened the skill sets of many; at the very least most people have become more tech-savvy. Who knew you could give an international presentation in your pyjamas with a red kelpie named Bobby lying at your feet?

But despite our pets’ protests, we can’t stay at home in our PJs forever. Whether voluntarily or at the beckoning of the boss, most people have crept from their COVID fallout shelters and back into the real world.

Some have had to relearn forgotten skills such as ironing a shirt, being courteous to other drivers, or selflessly sharing a bus or train carriage while sneezing into their elbow and not coughing even if they really, really, really need to. Yet, there is one basic social practice many still need to reacquaint themselves with and which, if not remedied quickly, could have significant consequences for the re-establishment of modern civilisation.

The skill of which I speak is basic elevator etiquette.

At least twice a day (because what goes up must come down), I suppress the urge to preach to my captive audience the basic rules that will ensure us a peaceful and efficient vertical journey. The 10 commandments of elevator etiquette are simple and easy to remember:

1. If you are the last person to enter the elevator, hit the “CLOSE DOOR” button. Standing jowl to jowl with a dozen people, staring like cattle out the open elevator door in awkward silence for 30 seconds is not the most pleasant way to start the day.
2. Despite rule No.1, for pity’s sake have some patience. If you try to board the elevator while I’m trying to exit, I will not hesitate to “Caitlin Foord” you out of the way.
3. If you are about to use the elevator, please don’t start a new phone call. If you spend the entire elevator ride hollering “Hello? Can you hear me now? Sorry, I just stepped into an elevator,” with people who have not yet had their morning coffee, you might not make it to your designated floor without a flick on the back of the head.
4. No crop dusting. If you can feel a gaseous build up in your lower region and don’t think you can hold it, wait or take the stairs. And don’t think you’ll get away with it. As with poker, most people have a “flatulence-tell”, whether it’s a lean, a cough or a slight intake of breath. In a small metal box with half-a-dozen other people, they’re going to know it was you.
5. If you wouldn’t discuss a particular topic in front of your nanna, don’t bring it into the elevator. No one wants to know how many times you puked, who you woke up with or the noises your partner makes during copulation. It’s an elevator, not a confessional.
6. When someone tells you to “get a room”, they don’t mean this elevator. With apologies to Aerosmith, the sound of tongue gymnastics going on behind you when you’re just trying to reach the ground floor is enough to break rule No.4, just to make the pain stop.
7. The obligation to hold the door for a person approaching the elevator generally has a five-metre exclusion zone. If you’re approaching an elevator and you’re outside the zone, sorry, catch the next ride. If you’re in an elevator and someone is within the zone and you deliberately let the doors close, well, it’s your call to test karma in a metal box dangling by a few cables hundreds of metres in the air.
8. If you’re unlucky enough to become trapped in an elevator, don’t panic. In most modern buildings, elevators have an emergency phone. This is the one time you are allowed to violate rule No.3.
9. Service elevators are for exactly that purpose. If you try bringing that load of day-old squid destined for the Seafood Restaurant on the 30th floor into this elevator, we are going to have a serious problem.
10. And, finally, it is an empirical fact that no jury will convict an individual for rendering unconscious anyone who holds open elevator doors to finish a conversation they are having with someone not intending to take the elevator.

Elevator etiquette is universal. It is set in stone. So, as we all learn to live together once more, review your elevator etiquette or start taking the stairs.

Brad Emery is a freelance contributor and a graduate of the School for Elevator Etiquette.