Bananas in pyjamas

[venta]

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

Comments

[feanelwa]

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]

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

[ringbark]

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]

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]

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.

[venta]

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!

[drdoug]

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

[drdoug]

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]

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]

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