A Shipping Mystery for a Monday

Have you ever questioned the common sense of an architect or designer? You know who I’m talking about.  The guy who thought it was a good idea to have five lanes of traffic merge into two, just over the top of a hill, without any notice.  Or, that person who thought it was a great idea to build the Weight Watchers next to the Cold Stone Creamery.

I made the trek to the post office last week with an armload of packages to be shipped.  I wanted to get them all in one trip so I wouldn’t have to wait in line more than once.  There were three sets of doors I had to pass through before I actually got to the cashier window: one set to enter the foyer, a second set to enter the lobby, and a third to enter the actual office.  Thankfully, there was a nice lady heading inside to check her PO box at the same time I was on my way to the office, so she pulled open the first two sets of doors for me.  I had to battle the third set myself.

After getting my packages merrily on their way, I marveled at the ease of my exit as I pushed my way through the doors and back into the sunshine.  That’s when I wondered, who decided it was a good idea to make all the doors in the post office “pull” to enter and “push” to exit?  Every time I go, I have an armload of boxes, which I struggle with before passing them along to the postal workers and exiting empty-handed.

The only reason I can think of is that maybe there’s some fire code that requires the doors to open that way…

Has anyone else experienced an inconvenience like this when shipping items?