Opaque automatic doors have ruined everything

If you drag yourself to the library at least once a week, you will be no stranger to the university’s bizarre love of automatic doors.

There are two more sets of doors behind this one. Two. More. Sets.

Their latest venture into this area, however (which I have endured for an entire term with gritted teeth and the silent indignation of a British person who has been cut in front of in a queue) is a step too far.

Forget no platforming, forget safe spaces, forget the appearance of Anna Wintour at our hallowed institution for one second and observe the ridiculous opaque automatic doors, the gauntlets of Derwent and Vanbrugh which countless students must run on a daily basis. These cruel traps are adding unnecessary amounts of stress to students’ lives for no good reason, and it’s time someone took a stand against it.

Yeah that’s my reflection

Firstly, what is unclear is precisely why everything you thought you knew has just crumbled into dust. All because of the strange images blocking your view of what might be lurking on the other side of that door. But why?

A dark void of self-examination

Secondly, just what are the pictures that are covering the once pristine glass on these doors? A nice city centre scene. Great. I really needed reminding of how nice York looks compared to my campus.

The longer you take to look at them in an effort to discern their significance, the more you run the risk of actually banging your head against the automatic door you have been focusing on because its detection time is simply that awful.

The real meat of the problem though is that with every other automatic door I’ve walked through in my life I have walked through with determination and confidence because I was sure I could handle what was on the other side. But now, who knows what could be lying in wait? There could be a horde of geese, a YUSU campaigner, or simply someone coming the opposite way at great speed who isn’t aware of which side of the path to walk on because they’re equally afraid of what to expect. All frighteningly real concerns at the present moment.

Frankly, living in an age where the government has nearly six million CCTV cameras to observe people and I can’t even see beyond an automatic door is beyond belief. York’s less than perfect free speech rating makes perfect sense given that even my vision has been censored.