Literacy in Action (or, why I won’t open the fucking door)

At work, I sit about ten feet from one of the entrance doors. Access is conveniently provided by the mystical waving of a small plastic badge at a black box mounted on the wall beside the door. The premise is simple: wave badge, door opens. No badge, no access through this door.

When someone has difficulty getting in – say, they forget their badge, their badge isn't working, or they left their R2 droid unit at home – they will, more often then not, forgo the twenty second walk around to the front set of doors (where sits a receptionist whose actual job duties include providing entrance to visitors and badge-less employees), and in defiance as such silly principles as logic will attempt to gain entrance through *this* door anyways.

It starts with attempting to open the door through conventional means. This will go on for a good fifteen seconds as they jiggle the handle, rapidly twisting it up and down. The first nine seconds of jiggling are spent hoping that this will be the moment their mutant powers kick in, that their latent magical abilities will suddenly manifest themselves, or that they might experience a spiritual awakening along with the gift of miracle working. Inevitably, they are forced to confront the failure of their dreams and spend the next six seconds working the handle loudly in a subtle hint that someone on the inside should take pity on them and come open the door.

When this fails, they move on to the more direct tactic of knocking. At this point, someone on the inside either gets irritated enough to stop their work and open the door or the person gives up and goes around to the front desk. This can take anywhere from thirty seconds to several minutes.

I'm not heartless. After hours, when the receptionist is not around, I will often pause my work and let someone in. But the rest of the time I turn up the volume on my iPod and ignore the pounding on the doors.

A whole new level of idiocy began this week.

The little black box died. Someone attached a large note, covering the black box, that states in clear English: "Badge reader is broken. Please go through the front entrance." It is irritating, having to walk around to the front, mostly due to my habit of approaching the door, remembering that it is broken, and back-tracking around.

But I can read English. I know the door is broken. So I go around.

Apparently, literacy is a true issue in our country because a large number of individuals ignore the note and try to come in through the door anyways.

I'm tempted to put an even larger note on the door that says, "39% of DC residents are illiterate. If you're reading this, you're one of the educated 61% percent. Put your education to work and go to the front."

Oh, and because I am a nice guy, I'll add a quick, "Have a great day!" at the end.

With a smiley face.

Because I'm that nice.