SOooo, how much elevator laziness/impatience on my part sends me into e-hell?

[dawbs]

I've been working very long hours recently (hence no e-helling...these continue for the next month or 2), so I'm in my office when very few other folks are in the building.

I work on the 3rd floor, and I end up running between the 3rd floor and the first floor.  Most of the time, I take the stairs, it's good for me and the building is older and the elevators are horridly, painfully slow.

However, when I've been at work for 12 hours, in dress shoes, the elevator sounds awfully appealing...so how e-hell worthy is it to "seed the elevator" when I know very few people are around?
(meaning, I take the stairs up to my office, when I arrive on the 3rd floor, I go past the elevator to get to my office.  I know within 20 minutes, I'm going to need to go back downstairs.  SO I hit the down button, then continue on past.  20 minutes later, when I head back downstairs, the elevator I "called" earlier is on my floor and doesn't require me to wait for it.)

If I was *sure* I was the only person in the building, I'd think nothing of this...saves me time w/o costing them anything.  But I know there are always a few other people around (if no one else, the custodian who has to use the elevator to move floor to floor...) and when I "seed" the elevator, it does have the chance of slowing them down if I happen to call for it when they need it and they make an unexpected stop on the 3rd floor...

[guihong]

I think it's downright safer to use the elevator in your case, so go ahead and seed.  Be sure you're safe if you're working mostly alone like that.

gui

[maus]

I don't think you're doing anything wrong, it convenient and as long as you don't actually stop the elevator from moving to other floors no one has the right to complain.

[veryfluffy]

So if you hit the button, and no one else calls the elevator in the meantime, you don't have to wait for it. And if you don't hit the button, someone else might not have to wait for it, or they might anyway because it was sitting on a different floor...

Honestly, if it's so important that you don't have to wait 15 seconds for the elevator to turn up, maybe you need to re-assess your lifestyle a bit?

[DottyG]

Honestly, if it's so important that you don't have to wait 15 seconds for the elevator to turn up, maybe you need to re-assess your lifestyle a bit?

Just as a note, you've probably never been in a place where the elevators are slow.  From the sounds of your post, you're used to regular elevators.  However, older ones can take quite a long while to get to a floor.  I was in an old building the other day where the elevator took 5 minutes to get to me.  And, it was only a 3 story building (I'd have used the stairs, but my knee injury sometimes prevents me from doing that safely - I'd been using my legs a lot that day and didn't want to chance a fall at that point).

[IndianInlaw]

Do what you want.

We won't tell.

[MDefarge]

I don't think you're doing anything wrong, it convenient and as long as you don't actually stop the elevator from moving to other floors no one has the right to complain.

I totally agree, and as someone who *has* had to wait for veeeeeeeeery slow elevators, I don't see anything wrong with it especially since you know you will be using the elevator at some not to far into the future time AND that there aren't that many people in the building when you were doing it.  Maybe it would be rude to do this in the middle of the day, but I think in this particular situation you are fine.

[Sterling]

We have an elevator like that here.  No one used it because our building is only 4 stories and the thing can take 5 sometimes even 10 mintues to get here.  and sometimes it will sit on the floor with you in in and take a long time for the doors to open.  I actually started to panic last week because it took so long that I thought I was stuck in there.  I wouldn't use it at all but I fell on ice and have hurt my ankle so the stairs are kind of hard.

I really don;t think you are doing anything wrong because you have no promise that if someone needs to call the elevator it would have been on thier floor  and they may have had to wait for it anyway.

[Katharine]

Well as long as you aren't withholding the elevator it's fine. Also if someone pushes the button in the mean time and the elevator isn't there as long as you don't scream at them for using "your" elevator I think you are good to go.

[Minmom3]

IMHO, as long as you don't lock it out of service, you're fine.  Anybody else could also call the elevator, taking it away from your floor, right?  But they didn't and it's still on your floor?  Then, fine.  Some days your feets HURT, some days you're up for the stairs....

[amiboo]

I know within 20 minutes, I'm going to need to go back downstairs. 

If the elevator took 15-20 min to get to my floor I would totally do this too.  Ours is slow but not that slow. 

[hobish]

...so how e-hell worthy is it to "seed the elevator" when I know very few people are around?

Oh my! I am glad you explained what you meant. On first read i took that as something completely different. I really thought you were going to ask how rude it is to pass gas in an elevator if no one else is around.
Ahem.
 Ok.
 Composure regained.

I think your seeding idea is brilliant. If the place was busy & you were inconveniencing others for your impending convenience (does that make sense?) that would be rude; but i think you've got a great system going there.

[Morty'sCleaningLady]

Take the elevator!

At my office building, you don't want to know how many able bodied individuals get off on 2.  I can't get in or out of the office (12th floor) without stopping on 2.  My favorites are the employees who obviously work in a physical manner (construction foreman or the like) at 7:30 in the morning.  Anyone sick, disabled or wearing heels gets a break, but the comfy shoe young guys I really doubt.  (Especially when carting gym gear).

[scattley]

If you have been doing this in the past - how many times have you come back to the elevator and it hasn't been there waiting? That should give you an indication on how often you may be inconveniencing people.

[artk2002]

If you have been doing this in the past - how many times have you come back to the elevator and it hasn't been there waiting? That should give you an indication on how often you may be inconveniencing people.

Not a valid test at all.  They'd only be inconvenienced if and only if they were actually coming from the floor that the elevator would have been on, had the OP not summoned it.  If they were coming from an entirely different floor, they'd be "inconvenienced" no matter what the OP did.

OP: I wouldn't worry about it at all.  You're trying to maximize your convenience, and not taking away anyone else's opportunity to do the same.  Someone else could "seed" the elevator, too.  Hmmm... you could have an elevator-summoning battle.