The person nearest the buttons receives a tiny public responsibility without an appointment.

Standing closest to the panel makes you the one who presses floors for everybody, and nobody voted on it. Small public duties arrive by geography rather than by choice, and most of them last under a minute. How they are handled still shapes how a shared space feels, because a person who asks which floor has made a stranger visible.

Take the role when it lands on you rather than pretending not to see it. Ask, wait, hold the door for the slower step. Then notice the times someone did the same for you and never mentioned it.