I’ve stopped taking the elevator and started taking the stairs like some kind of big man
The elevator service at my job is terrible. It’s so terrible, in fact, that I’ve actually been able to bond over it with friends and loved ones who work in the same building.
My brother’s girlfriend Jocelyn used to work a few flights up, and back when I was first getting to know her, it was cool to have the crappy elevators in common. It gave us something to talk about during the many, many minutes we spent hanging out in the lobby like a couple of chumps.
She’s since left the job in question – possibly because of the elevators, I can’t say for sure – so for all I know, she’s totally unaware that they’ve finally unlocked the stairwells. Up until recently, the doors on every floor opened from the outside, but not the inside; I could take the stairs down from the seventh, in other words, but I couldn’t take them up from the lobby. Even if I was late for work because I’d been waiting ten motherfudging minutes for an elevator.
Thankfully, the management finally bowed to a volley of complaints and unlocked the stairwell doors – and ever since that day, I haven’t even bothered with the elevators.
For one thing, it’s the healthier option; climbing seven flights of stairs at least twice a day instead of taking the elevator is exactly the sort of thing that people tend to make a big deal of doing during the first couple of weeks in January. For another, it gets me to my office faster than the elevators, which obviously continue to be lousy.
But there’s also the sense that I’m sticking it to the building managers by flipping one to their elevators and taking advantage of a hard-won victory. I won’t pretend I don’t get a kick out of that. If you’re worried about keeping your own personal resolutions, I highly recommend focusing on someone you can spite by doing so.
Either way, look at the tough guy who takes the stairs! Not only that, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before I can do it without wheezing, turning pink, and hallucinating the ghosts of relatives who died of heart complications! Check me out, you guys!
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There used to be this amazing sign posted in the elevator bank on my old floor; presumably a response to many (many, many) complaints, it read “THE BUILDING IS AWARE OF IT JULY 2008”, painstakingly typed in size ten font. That was the only indication we got that anything was ever happening about those wretched elevators, so I’m glad that they’ve finally done something (even though their fix for the situation doesn’t actually address the problem at hand whatsoever). Still, responding slowly to these things is their modus operandi, like the day that the elevator stalled on the 1st floor and I, along with another extremely bored lady, waited for 45 minutes while security “looked for a solution to the problem”. (The solution, as it turns out, was opening the door).
Actually, let’s focus on the real injustice here: the fact that I got stuck in an elevator at work, it didn’t turn out to be part of a nefarious scheme by Dennis Hopper, and neither Jeff Daniels nor Keanu Reeves came to save me before getting on an explosive bus! WHAT A RIP OFF
In conclusion, I’m coming back to the building, just so I can climb up to my old haunt and in doing so thumb my nose at the man. My old floor was the 16th floor, though, so please leave some smelling salts and a defibrillator by the door.
If it makes you feel better, Jocelyn, they did give a medal to a guy that day for shooting me.
They are actually working on the elevators, replacing them with new ones, but it’s a very long-term process. They’ve replaced one of the five so far, and it took a few months. I think it’s a “hopefully done by late 2012” kind of job.