Apartment elevator etiquette

Hello there,

Today when I came home from work, I was starving and scattered and feeling quite pressed for time. I had a huge list of things to do, which started with having to walk into the basement of the building, fetch a grocery cart from there, bring it back to the garage, load up the cart with the current contents of my car (groceries galore, and my work laptop bag), then push the cart back into the building so that I could bring all that stuff up to my place and start cooking dinner, doing laundry, changing the bed sheets, cleaning the bathroom, etc. Now, entering the building from the garage involves going through two sets of doors, down a little corridor, then around the corner to the elevator. So, when someone is struggling to drag a shopping cart through that whole series of checkpoints, it is pretty audible to anyone who happens to be in the basement or garage. Therefore, it is my opinion that common courtesy would dictate that if the person with the shopping cart is less than twenty metres behind you, it is a really nice thing to wait and hold one of the doors open for them, instead of just letting it close behind you, which then forces the person with the shopping cart to deal with the additional hassle of having to navigate through their set of keys to open the doors, and then wrestle the (always) full shopping cart with the (always) wonky wheel through the doors. Sadly, many people do not share the same opinion as me on this particular matter. People have let the door slam behind them when I have been less than five metres away. Forreals. So, imagine my delight today when I entered the building through the two doors, turned the corner from the little corridor, and found that someone was holding the elevator for me! This person had come to the elevator from the laundry room, and had heard me crashing through the first set of doors, and thankfully had the inclination to hold the elevator and wait for me to reach its threshold. I was *so* grateful! And as it turns out, the person that did that was actually my neighbour across the hall who I have never met! What a nice first encounter. I find that common courtesy and respectful interactions with strangers are such rarities, and that makes me sad. However this man who lives across the hall bestowed such a rare experience upon me today, and I hope that someone does something equally nice for him tomorrow.

Have a nice day,

the nicepaper


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