Brighten Your Day

This Elevator Photo Will Make You Question Everything

May 26, 2018

Someone snapped a photo from inside of an elevator and it is going to make you question everything. The close-door button in the elevator apparently fell off, revealing that it was never connected to the control panel.

As it turns out, most elevator close-door buttons aren't wired to anything, according to an elevator technician.

"About 80 percent of them don't work," explains Patrick Carr, a lifelong elevator technician who ran the Elevator Historical Society. "It's because they were never wired up—most of the time we don't do it."

But don't worry, the reason has more to do with practicality than spite.

"Most elevators are programmed to learn and work off of a building's traffic patterns—for instance, a rush of activity around 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and therefore know when to return to the ground floor ASAP, when to idle, etc. Artificially forcing the doors to close can throw this off."

So the next time you see someone pushing the close-door button, have yourself a good laugh.