Apartment Lift Wait Has Exceeded Its Original Mandate
Both lift buttons have been pressed. Whichever lift arrives will be treated as a personal victory.
I.
The building has two lifts. They are labeled L1 and L2. The call button for each is a separate button.
Pressing L1's button calls L1. Pressing L2's button calls L2. Pressing both buttons does not call a combined or faster lift. It calls both lifts. Whichever one arrives first will be used. The other will arrive shortly after, find no one waiting, and return to its default position.
This is how lifts work.
II.
The subject presses both buttons.
Pressed simultaneously, with a confidence suggesting this is correct lift operation procedure.
The subject is a twelve-year resident of the building. The subject is not confused about how lifts work.
III.
The logic, as reconstructed: on a number of occasions, L1 was occupied or in use on a high floor when called. L2 was not pressed. L2 was idle on the ground floor, available, not summoned. Time was wasted.
The solution: press both. Whoever answers first wins. Nobody loses. The cost is one extra lift arriving at the lobby and returning empty.
Once apartment lift wait saves five minutes, it becomes eligible for permanent cultural adoption. The wait did not save five minutes on that day. It saved perhaps ninety seconds. But ninety seconds, repeated over twelve years, has compounded into certainty.
IV.
New residents ask why both buttons need to be pressed.
The answer given: "It's faster."
They ask why it's faster.
The answer given: "You'll see."
The new resident begins pressing both buttons within three weeks. They cannot explain why. They know it's faster.
V.
L1 arrives. The subject enters. The door closes.
L2 arrives forty seconds later. The lobby is empty. L2 returns to the fourth floor, where it apparently lives.
The subject reaches their floor. They are on time.
The method worked. The method always works. This is taken as evidence that the method is correct.