February 18, 2004 12:39 AM

Broken: Elevator buttons

Andrei Sedelnikov writes:

This is a picture of an elevator cabin in our office building in Filderstadt, Germany.

"U1/U2" mean underground floors, "E" usually stands for "Erdgeschoss" - the ground floor. Up above there is a shield with companies' names on each floor - very useful for an occasional visitor. The problem arises when the visitor wants to get out of the building: which button should he press, [E] or [0]?

Recently I have indeed observed a visitor, who has pressed both buttons because he didn't know which one would lead him to an exit.