Bananas in pyjamas

[venta]

So, people of the internet, tell me your thoughts on climbing stairs.

For our example, we're going to consider my office. I work on the second floor. It's a high-ceilinged building, so more stairs per floor than an average house, but it's still (on average) quicker to climb than it is to wait for the lift. It's actually a rather grand marble staircase that wraps round the lift shaft (three sides of a square, not a spiral) and it has bannisters on one side.

(66 steps - I just counted them)

Now, at one end of the spectrum we have, say, a wheelchair user who will always take the lift. At the other, maybe a fitness enthusiast who will always run up the stairs. In between we have people who do one or the other, or whose behaviour changes from day to day depending on a million factors.

I walk up the stairs every day because I think it's quicker. Because I'm too impatient to wait for the lift. Because I worry that (having a dicey knee) if I don't use the stairs I might one day find I can't any more. But primarily because I assume that stairs is the usual, default choice of someone who feels physically up to climbing them without impacting the rest of their day. For two storeys, you'd only bother with the lift if you couldn't do the stairs.

Empirically, this is not how my colleagues feel: most of them take the lift.

Now, I know my colleagues all consider themselves physically capable of tackling the stairs. I know this because my desk-neighbour recently had to write a hasty addition to our fire safety policy when we had a contractor who couldn't, in emergency, use the stairs.

I understand, though, that there's a big difference between "can in an emergency" and "choose to every day". I have no idea whether people have health issues that mean they prefer the lift, whether they just consider the lift the sensible option, or whether it's simply slightly closer to the entrance. Maybe they just don't want to arrive at the office out of breath.

And so, my representative sample of humanity, I'd like to know your thoughts. If you can use stairs, do you? If not, why not? Do you think the question should be "given that there is a lift, why don't I use it?"

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

For one floor up I take the stairs unless I'm carrying something awkward. For two flights up I will almost always choose the lift because stairs make my back hurt and unless I run up them, I will arrive wincing and unable to concentrate. For down I will always choose the stairs unless they are the stairs in the main building at work that go round a big empty central light well and have glass screens between the stairs and the banister rail, because going down them makes me dizzy. I have been practising going down those stairs and determinedly looking away from the well though because I don't want to hold everybody up being vertiginous if there is a fire.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Wow, those stairs do sound quite nasty! Sounds like - as with many things - they're someone's triumph of design aesthetic over usability.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

Ages ago, I read a suggestion that at start of day you should walk up the stairs to the office and at end of day you should walk down, for reasons of health support.
At other times, get the lift or walk as appropriate... Big queue for lift means walk, massive crowd in stairwell means get lift, but that's unusual.

At the time I started this, we were on the 4th floor. Just before our move to the 10th floor, I overheard some colleagues saying "I can't wait to see the state Ian is in after walking up ten floors." Bastards! So I did it and it nearly killed me and I kept on doing it till it didn't nearly kill me any more.

And by this time, more than half of the department were doing the same!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I used to walk up to the top floor of Reading Bridge House every time I had to visit it - I can't remember if it's 9 or 10 floors now. But I was in my early 20s and very fit then. :)

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I'm in about the same place as you, I think. For two, or perhaps even three, floors, I'll always take the stairs (both up and down), primarily because it is almost always quicker, but secondarily because I believe it's good for fitness. I also note that a lot of other people don't seem to make this choice. But then I know from walking along pavements and corridors that I like to move around faster than almost everybody else I ever encounter, so I guess it's not surprising to find that taking the stairs for the sake of speed is also the behaviour of an unusually impatient person.

I'll take the lift when I believe it might be quicker (i.e. for four or more floors), when I've got something heavy with me (e.g. a suitcase), or when I'm in an unfamiliar building and find the lift before the stairs.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I always use the stairs, and seek them out in hotels when they are grotty and hidden, because I like moving rather than waiting but mainly because I want to add exercise into my life, and if you can add 20s of exercise for 10s extra time, that's much better than driving to a gym where the ratio is much worse.

I walk up and down railway platforms to get some extra 5 minutes in, climb escalators and walk 20 minutes rather than catch the tube for 10.

If you think that every minute exercising extends your healthy life by most of that minute, you'd be daft not too, unless you regard that experience as horrid (which I'd count gyms as). But I love walking. Sadly the only 'Rocky stairs' near me aren't that exciting.

[venta.livejournal.com]

This - or, rather, a slightly less militant version ;) - is broadly my thinking. I therefore assume that everyone who takes the lift must be feeling ill, or very tired, or be less physically able than they appear. Evidence suggests this assumption must surely be wrong!

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I'm mostly a stairs person. This is because:

(1) I'm really rubbish at standing still. I tend to get low blood pressure, so sometimes I feel faint even from a minute of standing, plus it sort of makes me anxious too.
(2) Misophonia. Being stuck in a lift with a chewer, slurper or chomper is pretty much hell for me - I'd go to great lengths to avoid it.

So even when I was working on the 5th or 6th floor I tended to take the stairs. The exception is my current office, which I don't actually go to very often and is ridiculously maze-like. I was scared to take the stairs at first because it would cause me to get lost, so I've got into the habit of taking the lift, pacing about while waiting, and 'suddenly remembering something' and leaving if someone appears with food or coffee or chewing gum.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I'm a confirmed walker for up to two flights either way, but variable for three or more depending on circumstance. When on higher floors I definitely tend to walk down more often than I walk up. I can come up with all sorts of rationalisations for this but tbh it is largely long-established habit.

I was similarly surprised to discover my colleagues' views and actions. I work in a building with a ground floor, first floor, and second floor, but high ceiling heights, so it's closer to 1.5 / 3 flights of stairs. We've been in it for years, but I am still surprised to find colleagues who (somewhat sheepishly) take the lift rather than the stairs despite being perfectly capable of stairs. For many, of course, I can't tell - disabilities and impairments are not always visible. I have several colleagues who I know can't use the stairs, or have serious difficulty doing so. It's hard to remember that, despite what I perceive as my alarming lack of regular exercise, I am probably in the more active quartile of that population.

We had a survey of stairs/lift decisions - one of the joys of working in a building with computer scientists - this was a project testing ambient sensing. Early data I saw suggested more than half the trips up were in the lift, which very much surprised me. I didn't totally trust their data, though, after I established it was incorrectly counting me - I take an idiosyncratic route to my favourite set of stairs, rather than the common route to the nearest stairs to the entrance.

How I want to be at the other end can make a difference. I'll walk up one flight pretty much whatever (unless ill or burdened), but I have in the past made the mistake of bounding up six flights of stairs to reach an important meeting for which I was running later than I like. I did get to the room before the lift would've got me there, but I was not able to start my presentation properly until after I would have had I taken the lift.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Ooh, tell you what was a revelation when I was still a young man: Having a minor lower leg injury that had me going around one-legged for a week or so. Those now-ubiquitous gentle slopes, frequent hand-rails and lifts to every floor were a god-send. I was all in favour of access for all arguments before that, but feeling it directly and personally made a difference. To my slight shame.

[venta.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine has a theory that everyone, while a teenager, should have a Sekrit Government Operative break into their house and trash their harddrive. The idea is that direct personal experience is the only way everyone will actually learn about backups. Perhaps our Operative should also break the subject's ankle while there :)

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I can see the appeal of that theory. As a teenager, my then-computer-phobic mother taught me that lesson, along with another important one for a coder. I'd spent *all day* on the family ZX Spectrum writing a fruit machine game. I wanted to make it as user-friendly as possible, and persuaded my mother to give it a go, on the grounds that if she could use it, anyone could. She sat down cross-legged, and pulled the computer on to her lap. That, alas, was slightly further than the power cable would reach. Of course, I hadn't saved it to tape. Luckily, the next day, I was able to add the 'rewriting it is way quicker and you end up with something better' lesson to the importance of backups. It didn't immediately help my mother's computer phobia, of course, despite my reassurances.

>Perhaps our Operative should also break the subject's ankle while there :)

I prefer the the plan of making personal connections between people with salutary experiences, rather than inflicting them. Having a friend who is gay is a massive predictor for positive views towards non-heterosexuality. So I reckon we should be able to get further and cause less harm by social engineering of people's friendships. Because nothing can go wrong with that, right?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I can sometimes, and when it's one flight I tend to, although when I was working last I used the lift when I arrived because I'd usually just walked a mile to get there and stairs immediately after that are really hard work for me. At lunchtime I'd walk down, sometimes walk back up; I'd usually walk down in the evening but not infallibly. (At that stage my back was about the same, but my legs were much better than they are now.)

In the JR my appointments are usually on the top floor so the lift is an obvious choice. I have a similar dizziness problem with lightwells and glass screens, so in any building where I know ahead of time that that's a problem I will head for the lift.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

My office is one floor up and I have a couple of classes which are two flights up; I take the stairs (come to think of it I don't know where the lift is for the two-flights-up teaching). I used to be much more prone to taking the lift for anything over one flight, but these days I try to be fairly physical active within my normal routine (so I cycle or walk rather than driving whenever possible, and will choose to go to a more remote shop rather than a nearby one for the sake of the exercise, but I don't go to the gym), and avoiding lifts is part of that. I don't know where my limit would be; when I go to my local Ikea, I climb seven or eight flights, I think, rather than taking the lift, although if I have a trolley on the way down, I don't have much choice!

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

....are coming down the stairs, bananas in pyjamas are chasing teddy bears. (I've done my stints on crèche duty). Working for more than 40 years in a four story building with no lift at all, I said I'd retire if I couldn't run (less ploddingly tiring than walking) from reception on the ground floor to the wages cashier on the top floor without getting out of breath. I couldn't put it to the test as new owners put our retirement age up by 3 years and made the cashier redundant. Thanks to an ex who insisted I try potholing, I never use lifts and still have my own hips and knees.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Weren't the steps in your building weirdly shallow? That's how I remember them, anyway.

I wonder if that makes them more ploddy?

My previous office had strangely tiring stairs. Those of us who used them in preference to the lift all agreed that we ended up more out of breath than was reasonable. I think they were actually slightly deeper stairs than is usual.

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Depends if you used the front or back stairs! And I seem to remember some flights in each were different.

[pm215]

I will pretty much always take the stairs if it's one or two flights up; after that it's a bit more variable and for five or more floors almost always the lift. This is mostly because I'm too impatient to stand around waiting for the lift, even if it's overall faster to use it. Getting a little bit more exercise is a secondary benefit. I usually take escalators rather than stairs, unless the approach to the escalator is so crowded with people that the stairs look quicker.

Like another commenter I tend to seek out the usually hidden stairs in hotels; in that case there's also a vague sense that they're worth scouting out in case of fire.

[glittertigger]

I take the stairs if it's one floor, but will choose the lift for more than that. When fully fit I use stairs more, but alas that is not currently the case due to tedious health stuff.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

3rd floor office - working for a leisure company which has recently put posters on every landing to tell you how many calories you've burned by taking the stairs.

It varies a lot, but I'm more likely to take the lift up and the stairs down. Reasons: down is easier (obviously), also there's an indicator on the ground floor to tell you where the lift is, so if it's there I'll take it, but no indicator on the third.

My main reason to take the lift is that motorcycle gear is hot and heavy, plus if I take the lift down at the end of the day, I can use the journey to apply lip balm, insert ear plugs and get the bike keys out.

My main reason for taking the stairs at the end of the day is that I can bound down them while shouting "FREEDOM!" inside my head.

[uitlander]

My personal choice would be to take the stairs as part of my 'build a teeny bit of exercise any way you can into the day.'

My buggered knee means that I have not gone near the stairs at work since January last year, on the grounds of personal safety. I treat stairs at home with extreme caution, and going down them is an extremely slow and cautious experience. Going up them is nowhere near as bad.

I get annoyed by able bodied people filling the lift when there is no space for me when they have the option of taking the stairs.

[dr-bob.livejournal.com]

Take the stairs for two floors. Since I'm on the third (and the lift is usually not slow/busy) that means I usually take the lift up to work, although that gives me a chance to fold away headphones etc before I reach the lab. Almost always down the stairs, though. Preferably two steps at a time.

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

I made a new year's resolution 20 years ago to never use a lift or escalator if there's a staircase which can be reasonably used ( I added the reasonably after nearly expiring at the top of Covent Garden underground station's spiral nightmare)

Hotels can be fun, finding the back staircases which are designed as fire exits and sometimes you can get out onto another floor or the outside and sometimes the doors are alarmed and you have to go back up or down to whence you came

Keeps me mobile and saves waiting for lifts.

[lnr]

My office is on the fourth floor - and most of my immediate colleagues walk up and down the stairs - there are people who do use the lifts who could probably walk but it's a big building and a small lift and quite often you're only going one or two floors to find people. If I were another couple if floors up it might be different.

Admittedly my wing hasn't got a lift to my exact floor anyway, so I'd have to walk one short flight minimum anyway (this was a slight nuisance when I was walking with a stick when recovering from a bad sprain/chipped bone).

I used to have an office on the first floor and actually used a lift more often then as we were right at the end of the corridor which had a lift but no stairs, and it was quicker than going the whole long way round - but it always felt silly.

(Floors given by actual number of flights above ground level, rather than named level - our floor numbering is silly).

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Stairs. Despite physical difficulties similar to your knee I have a mental use it or loose it approach. However: carrying heavy stuff, needing to look professional and not risk red-faced, breathless or when wearing heels is a big factor, as it perceived social benefit of staying with group- small environment can create illusions of colleague closeness which can be useful in certain areas of work. But mostly, stairs. Recent exposure to American lifts made me more lift friendly (as though not claustrophobic the boredom risk of being trapped in a lift without book puts me off) because they have interesting fireperson operation of lift notices and exciting fire crew buttons. I oftern optimistically informed A that I hoped pushing a certain button would result in a hat of interesting design being delivered to the door. He reconed not and that there might be fines.

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

I almost always take the stairs. Even when I was working on the fifth floor of a towerblock, I took the stairs. I've been known to take the stairs up from Covent Garden. I think it's daft to avoid simple forms of exercise in normal life by doing things like taking a lift.

My real hatred, however, is reserved for people who stand still on escalators.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Do you hate them on principle, or just if they stand still in front of you? I think the London policy of stand on the right, walk on the left works pretty well.

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

Only if they're in my way. But in many shops the escalators are only wide enough for one person anyway so the left/right thing isn't possible anyway.

[shermarama]

Generally stairs for me for anything up to three floors, and lifts for anything more, or if I'm feeling really knackered, or have just cycled in at high speed and need to demist a bit before arriving at a meeting, or if I'm carrying something heavy, with some further exceptions:
- I live on the third floor and there's no lift here, so I walk up and down those all the time
- I used to live on the seventeenth floor and would walk up or down the stairs now and then just because I could, really. They were neat and clean and perfectly usable, but hidden away in the core of the building with no natural light and an unlabelled separate entrance, and they had the feel of a secret space no-one else ever used. Also since there were only two lifts serving floors nine to thirty, when one of the lifts broke or was being blocked by movers it was sometimes still quicker.
- I used to work in a university department that was housed on the fourth to eighth floors of a building, and the department went through a phase of replacing the traditional open noticeboards with enormous locking perspex-fronted ones, because they liked to have lots of notices in the corridors but loose papers had been identified as a fire hazard. These were too big to fit in the lift, and were heavy enough to need three people to convincingly carry. So many of the other technicians learned to avoid me at around that time because of the risk I was going to ask them to walk to the eighth floor carrying one-third of a very large noticeboard.

I'm sure some people would ask why you don't just use the lift seeing as how it's there, but I bet a lot of them would be younger.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I wonder that you're right about the younger. The average age in my office is very low, maybe they all just haven't started writing about their knees/general health yet!

[shermarama]

Perhaps you could bring this topic up with them and see if you can induce any of them to start worrying about it? Or would that be evil?

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

I take the stairs (2nd floor at work) - like you, I don't like waiting around for a lift, and worry that one day I won't be able to use stairs (plus it's what little exercise I get!)

I don't know if it's quicker, but when I see someone get in a lift at the same time as I'm going up the stairs, I do feel pleased if I beat them to the top.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

In my last few jobs I've been on the sixth and eighth floors - so I take the lift. Back when I worked on the second, I always walked. However, when I was on the fourth it was half and half.

[dmh.livejournal.com]

At my previous building I was on the fourth floor and took the stairs, except when in a group with known lift-using allergies. Nowadays doesn't really count as I work on the first floor, though the stairs are made of glass and a deathtrap if they've just been washed, so I sometimes use the lift.