Fast Fact

I was just informed that my (male) roommate waits for me to come out of the bathroom in a towel after a shower, not because he likes to ogle me, but because it smells good. I may have lost my touch.

Awkward Moments

So the best part of the elevator ride is the uncomfortable silence as you and the other occupants attempt to ignore each other or awkward conversation that ensues when you accidentally make eye contact with someone.



Here's one of the latter I had today on the ride down after work:



Senior Partner in the firm: Incoherent mumbling

Me: "Pardon Me?"

SPITF: "Had enough, have you?"

Me: "Yep."


SPITF: Incoherent mumbling

Me: "Pardon me?"

SPITF: "How are you?"

Me: "Good thanks and you?"

SPITF: "Fine, fine."

SPITF: Incoherent mumbling

Me: "Pardon me?"

SPITF: "Hard day of business. Some days are good and some aren't. Heh heh."

Me: "Yup."


Zzzziiipppp


???

And thank God the doors opened.

Terror on the Thirty-Third Floor

So. Apparently my new job is going to be nothing but non-stop adventure, with some phone answering and lewd looks in the elevator thrown in for good measure. I say this because yesterday, the fire alarm went off. Also, yesterday in the elevator when I got in, the lone male already occupying the car winked at me and then openly ogled me until I got off (the elevator. Get your minds out of the gutter).

And now, back to the ALARM. It was my lunch break, and I was happily anticipating sitting and reading and listening to loud music (so others wouldn't feel obliged to make conversation with me) after I finished a quick email. All of a sudden, this bell starts going off. It was advantageous that I had read the Emergency Procedures sheet the day before, and that I knew that the "fast pulse" (as opposed to the "slow pulse") meant get out now. Slow pulse, according to the sheet, means change your shoes, grab your jacket, and await further instructions. Fast pulse apparently means everyone panic and run for the stairs and leave the new girl to lock the gate by herself.

Since I had to stay behind to lock the gate, I was one of the last ones down the stairs, which was nice because I managed to avoid the crush of terrified office workers and had a leisurely stroll down thirty three flights of stairs, in a stairwell that was so hot I figured the fire was in it. By the time I got to the ground floor, all of my co-workers had disappeared, leaving me alone in a sea of confusion. I eventually found them. The firefighters gave the all clear, so we all trooped back into the building. After waiting ten minutes for an elevator (as there were a thousand people trying to get into one car every time the doors opened), we got to the front of the line, and when the doors opened, the car was already packed. My co-worker got in but I chose to wait for the next one. As you may have heard, I hate elevators, and if it's filled to capacity, there is no chance in hell of me getting on it. It turns out this was the best decision I made all day. Just after the doors closed, the alarm went off again, and the elevators all lost power and froze. It was only for a couple seconds, as they automatically return to the ground floor and lock when the fire bell goes off, but I think that would have been enough to end my day right there. Eventually the elevators got back on line, and we could all return to work. Aside from destroying my knuckles unlocking the gate, the rest of the day was largely uneventful.

I've been at this job for a week and have endured being stuck in an elevator and a fire alarm with a distinctly 9-11ish flair. I've learned that I'm not the only one who is uncomfortable in small spaces that are suspended high above the ground. I've learned that there's no such thing as an orderly mass evacuation, and I've learned that while walking down a million stairs is not as hard as walking up them, it still makes your legs scream the next day. I'm hoping there's no more lessons for while, because there's enough drama in my life right now.

Terror on the 29th Floor

I work on the thirty-third floor of a forty floor office tower. I have to take an elevator to this floor everyday. Several times a day, in fact. Here's a confession for you: I hate to take elevators. I hate taking them more than I hate taking the train to work at 6:45 in the morning. They're small, they're crowded, they are suspended by a thread hundreds of feet off the ground, and they are electrical equipment and it has been my experience that electrical equipment fails.

Today the unthinkable happened. There was a failure. I got in on the ground floor. I pushed the button. The other people pushed their buttons. The doors closed. The doors opened. The doors shuddered closed. The doors opened halfway and shut again. The alarm went off. It sounded like robotic laughter. The guy standing nearest to the buttons started frantically jabbing at the buttons, he gave them a dirty look that only a lawyer can muster. The elevator started going. The alarm stopped. The lawyer laughed nervously and said the elevator knew what was good for it, that it knew the screaming was next. We stopped at the twenty-ninth floor. A guy got off. The doors closed. The doors opened. The doors shuddered halfway open and shuddered closed again. They started freaking out. The alarm went off (still sounding like robotic laughter). I started freaking out. The lawyer started freaking out, frantically jabbing buttons. The lights went out. Someone said, "Oh Shit." The lights came on. The lights on the button panel remained off. The lawyer frantically hit the "door open" button over and over. Nothing happened. I watched him. The alarm continued. Someone suggested we use the emergency phone. The lawyer hit the button. THE DOORS OPENED!!! We exited the elevator in a hasty fashion. The ordeal was over. It had lasted five minutes. The lawyer was visibly shaken. Unfortunately we had to wait for another elevator, as the doors are locked inside the stairwell. We would have had to walk down twenty-nine flights of stairs and take another elevator all the way up. We pressed the button. The elevator opened it's doors and laughed at us. We sent it downstairs and called another one. It's doors opened. It was filled with people. We started toward it, when a courier jumped up from the back and hit the "door close" button. The lawyer flipped out, and was screaming at the courier as the doors shut and the elevator left. We called another elevator. It was empty. It took us straight to our floor. We got out and breathed a deep sigh of relief. The lawyer stormed past the reception desk and said he was calling maintenance. I'm glad that's not where I work.

I was telling the other receptionist about the ordeal, when I heard the laughter of the elevator. I turned around, in time to see a smallish Asian man stumbling out. He yelled to us over his shoulder as he hurried away, "I think there's something wrong with that elevator."