mindless codes

I appreciate fire codes. All health and safety codes were put in place for a reason, and I remember studying them in college, so I know they're there for a reason: to protect building occupants. It's The Code.

But dumb codes, like room occupancies that don't make sense, really bother me. Here's the deal: there are 2 rooms on this campus in the Seminary that can open up and become one large room. The Seminary uses the large room for chapel twice per week. It's required for all Seminary students. Somehow, the lovely campus space coordinator has an occupancy of 100 for that large space. Sure, maybe when it's in classroom setup mode, with tables and stuff. I'll buy that.

But what if you remove those tables? You can certainly put a whole chapel's worth of students in there. And they do, about 160 students every week with wide aisles and extra room in the back. And what about banquets? Big round tables take up much more room than the skinny lecture tables, so there's NO way I would allow 100 people in there. So really, a blanket number of 100 doesn't keep the space safe. No logic here.

I need that space for my workshop!!