Revolving Doors

In my opinion, the things that irrationally stir you up, are just as character defining as the things that move you.

There is only one real invention on this planet, that has the ability for me to get irrationally angry about.

Revolving doors.

It is one of the most baffling inventions on the planet.

A door that sucks at being a goddamn door.

I do not understand it one bit. To creating a revolving door, you need to create an additional four doors within a circle and expend energy in creating a revolving mechanism.

They aren’t even that aesthetically pleasing. It is confusing. The function is overtaken by the form.

How many people have you seen get stuck in a revolving door? Hundreds, if not thousands in your life time.

One idiot rushes in, just a tiny bit too late and the bastard of a door needs to stop because it could have crushed that idiot against the frame of the door.

Suddenly, everyone bumps into the pane of glass in front of them and now everyone is stuck in a goddamn door.

Imagine that … being stuck in a door.

The singular purpose of a door is to allow ease of access in any direction. It is a bloody opening.

Who makes a door where you can get stuck in the frame? What is the point of that? Why? It baffles the mind. It defies logic. It confounds reason.

The only time it can be considered useful, is if you are an assassin and you jam the door shut with your target in it and get an easy kill, ala The Godfather. But other than that one niche profession, who would need such a door?

They’re genuinely huge wastes of space. They take up more space in an entrance than is strictly necessary.

A revolving door’s width is about twice as large than a normal door, because it needs to accommodate so much more for no apparent reason. A motor to move the door, 4 glass doors, a large frame.

Worse, despite its large size, it restricts traffic flow.

You have to time your entry and even then the space between the 4 panes of glass is barely enough to fit one adult with their office bag, let alone two or three people.

Which means that only one or two people can enter through a door at a time. Which is great for emergencies when the building is on fire. Suppose the power goes out when the building is on fire and suddenly, you are literally only one windowpane of glass away from escaping, but the stupid circular mechanism is too stubborn to let you free.

Imagine that for one second and curse like me at the monumental puerility behind revolving doors.

It doesn’t even factor in disabled people. How is a person on crutches or a wheelchair supposed to enter the stupid thing?

So what ends up happening, is that you need to create two more disability doors on the side of this revolving monstrosity and so you end up with three doors at an entrance where one could have done everything.

Even more silly, is that it is these disabled doors that can open indefinitely during an emergency and you need to have them, because the revolving door becomes a giant obstacle for escape, whereas these disabled access doors can just swing open forever.

What is worse, anecdotally speaking, is if I press the button for the disabled door and it swings inward generously, with barely any time wastage, those who were waiting to enter a revolving door, end up going through my door anyway!

Because a door that swings inward automatically doesn’t waste your time with stupid shenanigans. It doesn’t need you to time your entry, it can let more than 5 people in at a time, and it doesn’t need a button to restart itself or slow itself down for you.

So, I ask you, what is the point of these stupid doors?

But enough logic, why do I, Damocles, hate the revolving door?

It is because, for those who know me well, I despise time wastage.

Doors are meant to be the smallest expenditure of anyone’s time. An electronic sliding door opens automatically and allows you through without a single waste of movement.

A traditional door with a handle and hinges, requires minimum energy to push or pull open.

An open doorway is the most efficient of all, just an empty space in the wall that leads into another room. It is merely an arch and it is as boring and simple as it gets.

Ancient cultures have used this method for hundred of years … and somehow our supposedly advanced civilisation creates a contraption that is 1000x more upsetting, useless and uglier.

But most crucially, it wastes precious seconds of your time in the fucking door.

I can’t stand that. The idea that I lost 2-4 seconds in a door, because it forces you to time your entry and follow its‘ rhythm is infuriating to me.

I’m a recalcitrant bastard at the best of times, and the idea that I got to obey a door to gain entry makes me incredibly angry.

I have to follow its’ timing, I have to wait for other to enter first, because the gap between the 4 planes of glass is too tight and awkward between strangers.

God forbid if one stupid idiot pushes the door and causes the mechanism to foul up.

This results in even more time wastage, as you have to wait for the revolving mechanism to start up again or for the idiot to push their way through.

Can you believe it? A potential 2-4 seconds of time, now extended to half a minute because the door is too fast, too slow or too inefficient at its own job for humanity to pass through a building.

I simply cannot accept the idea that theoretically if I lived till 80 years of age, and I entered one stupid revolving door, from 18 years of age onwards, with say 16 out of the 62 doors fouling up due to human stupidity, then I would have lost 11 minutes of my life to a goddamn door.

ELEVEN MINUTES TO A DOOR.

And that’s me being nice, because I only went through one stupid revolving door a year.

When in reality that’s not true, I would probably be averaging at least 6 or more doors a year.

I hate revolving doors so much. So very much.

They’re ugly.

They confuse people.

They’re shit in an emergency.

They take up more resources more than necessary.

They waste your time and can steal 11 minutes or more of your time.

Revolving doors need to be destroyed and we should bring back basic Japanese curtains to cover the doorway.

Like I said at the beginning.

Fuck this invention.

~ Damocles.