THE OPEN AND CLOSED CASE

The doors close button in elevators seems redundant. Because you know that the doors will close anyway, right?

Doors open I get. You see someone coming towards you, there's an emergency patient being rushed to surgery, I have an interview, I'm late for my meeting, can you hold the doors? Yes, yes I can. I have this button here - doors open. There are so many circumstances where the doors open is a handy option to have. Not even handy - necessary, I'd say. It's a little button that says "I am part of society, I will do this for my fellow man."

Doors close is like its evil twin. No one actually needs doors close. It just sits there, confusing things. Strange diagrams with arrows antagonistically pointing at each other. There are times, I admit, when I've seen someone approaching my elevator, the doors are closing and I've reached for doors close by mistake. It's those arrows, I can't work out what they mean in time so I panic. I just need one button there that reads "Doors" and does the opposite of what they're doing now. That would cover all eventualities for me.

No one needs doors close, surely? Is anyone in that much of a rush? Are they such a control freak that they need to constantly stab at buttons with their control freak fingers so that they can feel in control? You've selected your floor, the doors are closing, let it just happen now.

Maybe it's a cunning form of exercise. You know, "Hey, blubber boy, what - you're too unhealthy to walk up a few stairs?! Press this button, lose some weight already."

The doors close button is only really useful when facing a horde of flesh eating zombies. Then, you really want that degree of control. You're not really thinking about which floor you need, you just want that door closed. Well, that's not the only time it's useful, you can substitute veloceraptors, cannibals, pretty much any angry, life threatening mob, but you get my gist.

They should be clear with the labelling. Doors open and next to it zombie attack. Forget the arrows - let's have an illustration of a brain devouring undead on that button. Then I'd know which one to press.