bad design

[cellio]

I discovered today that our office has a race condition.

The doors from our space to the hall are connected to an alarm system. To enter through one of those doors you have to swipe a card and enter a code; to leave through one of those doors you have to push a button, which (we were told) disables the alarm for 60 seconds. 60 seconds ought to be long enough for anyone to walk the 10 feet to the door and get out, so I've been puzzled by the frequency with which the alarm goes off. We're all smart people -- are we really that bad about remembering to hit the button?

This afternoon I hit the button, saw the indicator light that said I'd connected, opened the door -- and set off the alarm. That's when I learned that closing a door resets the alarm; it's not really a 60-second window. So if I hit the button while the other door is open, and that door is closed before I walk over and open my door, the alarm goes off.

Bugger. While I don't sit right next to the alarm like some of my unfortunate coworkers, I sit close enough to hear it when it goes off. (That sucker is loud.) And I'm told there's nothing we can do about this problem. This seems like poor design; while it would come up only rarely in, say, your house with a handful of occupants, with close to 100 people and the restrooms and smoking area on the other side of those doors, there's a lot of traffic.

(Of course, we could address the problem informally, rather than with the alarm company -- but we have to be motivated. A door-cam would do it, but I don't care that much.)

Comments

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

That's a serious problem -- it leads to people disabling the alarm, which is contrary to intent and a security risk. Is there a physical security person you can discuss this with?

change

[benzado.livejournal.com]

How did you find out that it was wired this way? Does Andy know? We've already had them rewire the button to put a feedback light on it; are you certain they can't fix this?

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

If the alarm goes off often enough, and is loud enough, the noise may be breaking an OSHA or state workplace regulation.

http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_id=9735&p_table=STANDARDS
might be one place to start reading.

It would probably be a lot cheaper for your overlords to rewire the doors to work properly than to provide earplugs and regular hearing tests for the people who sit right next to the alarms. :-)

You should also point out that because of the regular false alarms, everyone has become accustomed to ignoring the alarms. ("false alarm immunity")

[jducoeur]

I discovered today that our office has a race condition.

Y'know, coming from almost anyone else, I would have expected this note to be about an equal-opportunity-employment complaint. (My mother works in the legal department of a big company, so I hear about a fair number of these.)

But yes -- idiotic design. I can't stand people who design security policies who don't actually understand security...