Close Door — Not!
Okay, since Garth Risk Hallberg at The Millions ("That Button Doesn't Work") invites us to help spread the word anyway, here he is quoting Nick Paumgarten from The New Yorker (link) on the efficacy of close-door buttons in elevators:
In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn't work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button's power. It's a little like prayer. Elevator design is rooted in deception.
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on Friday, 9 May 2008 at 02.51
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Who needs a button to close the door? If you shake one foot on the floor a couple of times, so the car shakes even slightly, the door will close. You will have tricked a motion sensor that registers the steps of people entering the car. The sensor "looks" for two or three entries, at least, to initiate door closing.
on Friday, 9 May 2008 at 17.47
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Not to mention that the little happy dance you describe would be so much more entertaining than watching that hot-headed guy, whose veins are about to explode, maniacally pushing the "close door" button.