Stardate 60851.81 - Elevator Woes

We have three elevators in our 17-story building, two regular passenger elevators and one service elevator. There are rules about not taking pets or laundry or large packages on the passenger elevators (which everyone seems to ignore), and rules about delivery staff always using the service elevator (which everyone seems to obey, except for food deliveries). One of the two passenger elevators was recently taken out of service for about 2 weeks for maintenance.

On Monday, I went down in the elevator to get the mail (we live on the 14th floor). A woman got on at 10, but proceeded to hold the door as she was getting on so she could yell at a child (I assumed she was a nanny) to go back inside his apartment. I could hear another woman (I assumed she was the mommy) also yelling at the child. This entire encounter took probably 30 seconds, but meanwhile she was holding up the only functional passenger elevator, and wasting my time. Finally the Mommy seemed to have control of the child so the nanny finished stepping on and released the door. And then she pressed 9.

9?!?

That’s right! She held up the elevator, wasted my time, and all so she could go down one floor. I was so close to saying something to her in the typical NYC passive-aggressive manner, but I refrained.

The elevator continued down to 3, where it stopped and two people got on. At first I thought maybe they were tired of waiting and had pressed both the up and down arrows to ensure they'd get a car. But alas, they pressed 1. Now I have to tell you, if I lived on the 3rd floor and one of the two elevators was out of service, I’d be taking the stairs. In fact, I'd probably always be taking the stairs whenever I was sans stroller. Thanks to the nanny on 10, they probably waited longer for the elevator to get to them than a trip walking down two flights of stairs would have taken. Again, I was so tempted to say something like that to them, but I refrained.

What’s wrong with people?

And P.S., here is your reminder to go vote today.

NYC