Elevate your elevator etiquette by deselecting a floor button you hit by accident.

There’s a special kind of awkwardness reserved for when you hit the wrong floor button on an elevator. As the elevator moves toward the floor number you’ve mistakenly commanded it to stop at, you can hope that someone else actually does need to get off there, but if not, there’s going to be that uncomfortable moment where everyone on the elevator just stands there wondering what’s going on as the doors open and nobody steps out.

However, unbeknownst to many is the fact that a lot of Japanese elevators have secret video game-like commands. But rather than giving you extra lives or power-ups, these commands let you cancel floors that you accidentally selected.

The method varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, but thankfully Japanese Twitter user @rsmaru has shared a list of some of the most useful.

According to the chart, if you’re on an elevator made by Mitsubishi, Matsushita, Toshiba, or America’s Otis, you can cancel a floor by quickly tapping twice (“double-clicking”) on the corresponding button. For Hitachi elevators, cancellations can be performed by holding the button for a few seconds, which also works on Mitsubishi and Toshiba models. Finally, if you want to cancel a floor on a Fujitec elevator, you’ll want to think back to old-school button-mashing 8-bit games, since you’ll have to hit the floor button five times in rapid succession.

Now before you go mashing your palm into the control panel the next time you’re on an elevator, figuring you’ll just cancel what you need to later, bear in mind that these commands may not work on older elevators. Still, they could save you a little embarrassment if you’re riding in a newer unit, and thanks to @rsmaru’s list, you can keep them tucked away in your brain.

Source: Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso

Follow Casey on Twitter, where one of his favorite secret codes remains Street Fighter II’s ↓R↑LYBXA.