Traffic-routing elevators…

On Monday, September 23, 2013, I started working at Red Hat in their new downtown Raleigh Red Hat Tower. I’m really enjoying working downtown so far.

My friend Fran took this picture of the building juxtaposed with the street name that bears my last name. The building’s not actually on Martin Street, but it’s nearby, obviously.

Red Hat building with Martin Street sign in front of it

The elevators in this building are quite interesting.

To call the elevator, you don’t press an up or down button in the area outside the elevators, like you normally do, but instead you punch in the number of the floor you want to go to on a number pad:

Number pad to call the elevator

Once it registers, it tells you which elevator to get on:

Number pad indicating to get on the E elevator

You wait for that particular elevator to arrive, and then you get on it.

The E elevator

When the door opens, the numbers of the floor(s) that has(have) been pressed for that car are displayed along the side, so you know exactly how many stops it’s going to make. I heard someone explaining yesterday that it limits that number to a maximum of three.

Open door indicating stops on floors 9 and 14

Once inside the elevator, there are no floor buttons, only the open and close door, alarm bell, and emergency call buttons.

Inside buttons available to press

I was there late one night, and I keyed in my floor, but forgot to look at the pad to see which elevator to get in. I panicked for just a second and then thought, “I got an idea. Just get in the one whose door opens!” D’oh.

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