I want to take this time to rant about something that has come to occupy my position of "chief pet peeve:" knocking on doors. It seems that many people simply do not comprehend any part of the door knocking process, nor the psychology behind such a gesture. I have come in contact with what I shall term Door-knocking Understanding Deficit Disorder (DUDD) a multitude of times, and most of these involve a bathroom of some sort. At the initiation end, where it is the responsibility of the entering or inquiring party to rap their knuckles against the door of a closed area before entering it, people seem to have the most problems. While this is admittedly the more difficult and challenging of the two possible positions one can occupy in this exchange, I feel it to be within the capacity of all but the most mentally deficient to perform this quick strike of the fist before entering a door which is quite clearly closed. It instead seems to be the order of the day to simply "assume" that the room is empty, regardless if there is any prior knowledge concerning the potential occupation of said room. The popular saying "to assume makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me' " does not exist without reason. This situation seems to apply equally to both doors which remain closed regardless of occupancy and doors which are closed only when the space hither is occupied.
At the other end of the equation, the receiving end, there is simply no excuse for lack of participation, again, short of severe metal handicap. The standard procedure for such a situation is, upon hearing the initiation party's rap against the door which encloses your occupied space, to respond in some sort of manner which indicates occupancy of said space. This can include anything from a strong grunt to a more polite and refined "I'll be out in a minute," or the simple and direct declaration that "somebody's in here." I consider this to be easier part of the exchange, since it involves no bold action of the participating party. They simply need to respond when the nonverbal exchange of information is initiated by the inquiring party's knock. However, even this simple action seems to be beyond the capability of all but the most expedient of participants, who remain completely silent upon initiation of the rapping inquiry. Their lack of response, however, is not a break in the information chain, but rather, an exchange in itself, in that their silence falsely notifies the initiation party of the lack of room occupancy. The initiation party then, understandably, acting on the information gathered from their inquiry, acts on said information and attempts to open the door and enter the room. The ensuing situation can be either awkward or enraging, as, respectively, if the door is not locked, then direct confrontation occurs, or, when the door is locked, a sort of trompe-espirit occurs, as sudden realization that one has “been had.” The anger that ensues is often much greater in magnitude than the original offense, yet equally as trivial and fleeting.
In conclusion, it is very clear that DUDD affects large parts of the population. It is unclear what precisely causes this etiquette deficit. To better protect oneself from the spread of this potentially dangerous disease, one should take steps to ensure they actively participate in all parts of the information exchange process in regards to the passing through of closed doors, but also take mental steps to prepare oneself for the inevitable time when one will be confronted with a sufferer of DUDD, and to reach a predetermined set of actions and reactions for dealing with such an awkward situation.
Dr. Cheezy Wiz, M.D.
You divide things by twelves?
. There's a thead about it in "Site Feedback", no wait, there's gotta be at least 5 threads on that issue. It seems nowadays even more occuring than it used to be. When will this problem be finally cast out of the forums?
