Vent of the Day

What is up with "Push to Exit" buttons?

Do you know the ones? If not, let me just tell you. My office has a button like this. Past six o'clock, you have to push this red button on the wall in order to exit the glass doors that lead to the elevator bank. Similarly, my friend Angie has one at her apartment building. You literally cannot go out her courtyard door and onto the sidewalk unless you find and press this little button.

Really?! Is this some kind of building safety feature that I am unaware of? Because all I can think of every time I have to press a button to leave my office or Angie's apartment is WHAT IF SOMEONE WAS CHASING ME WITH A KNIFE AND I COULDN'T FIND THE BUTTON? What kind of building needs a button to let someone out? Isn't the whole point of the lock and key situation to guarantee that only the safe people get in the building in the first place?

And, if you are a robber or a murderer or a knife-wielding psychopath and somehow managed to get into my office or Angie's apartment, is a button really going to hinder you from escaping before someone calls 9-1-1? Like, are you in the midst of your criminal mission and you get caught so you run to the door and push and it doesn't open and you look left and right and can't open it so you just throw your hands up and say, "Oh well, guess I'll just sit in this lovely vestibule 'til the police arrive...I'd really like to exit the building to roam free and wreak havoc on society. Too bad there's not a BUTTON."

...

I just had an epiphany. I've heard of these buttons...

"Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before

'Relax,' said the night man,
'We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
But you can never leave'"

Great. I work at the Hotel California.