Imagine you are late for work, your office is on the fourtieth floor, and you are just stepping on to a crowded first floor elevator. It might take a long time to make it all the way to the top. What was it AC/DC said? It's a long way to the top (If you wanna rock and roll).
Or let's pretend the building is on fire and your elevator is already full, or you simply would rather save yourself at the expense of others. Or perhaps you are in a hospital and a patient must be rushed directly from one floor to another without any stops.
Well, guess what? You don't have to wait for the elevator to make a dozen stops en route to your fourtieth floor destination. The sheer fact that you are reading this, and that you are late makes your journey more important than the trips that mere mortals have to take.
Getting an elevator into express mode is quite simple. All you have to do is press the button for the floor you want, and the "close door" button simultaneously. It is just that simple. This works in most Dover, Otis, and Desert brand elevators. There are two variations on the effect. On some elevators it will cause them to go directly to the mentioned floors, skipping all other floors, even ones that are already lit up. But on other models it will merely cause the elevator to ignore any requests from waiting passengers on other floors, and only stop at the currently lit up floors. The first "Express" effect seems to be the most common effect. This does not work on all elevators, but it does work on most of them. It appears to be an option that can be disabled by the owner. But most elevator owners don't tend to muddle around with dip switch settings or LCD menus, so it remains enabled on most of them.
The easiest way to get away with this trick is going down in really big buildings, as most people will be headed for the first floor, and the waiting people will have no idea that the elevator passed them by. You can even be really mean and actually get in the elevator on the first floor with a group of people bound for other floors and make it head for your floor first, but realize that people start freaking out when the elevator goes right past their floor. You could have a panic on your hands by the time you actually get off at the 52nd floor.
Obviously I can't be held responsible for what you do with this information, use it as you will.