Oh, it was another busy day, although I think the bulk of the work that’s kept me (and some of my co-workers) so busy this week is actually finished. Which is good, because I was only able to attend a couple of meetings this week, and that simply won’t stand in the long run. Not in this, the year of the meeting. It’s reassuring to glance at my calendar in Outlook and know that so many future hours and day are accounted for.
Unless, of course, I get trapped in one of the building’s elevators again, which is what happened to me at lunchtime. I saw one of my co-workers head downstairs in the same elevator not five minutes earlier, but when I got on it, it stopped on the floor below us, picked up another passenger, and then stranded the two of for the next fifteen or so minutes. We spent that time talking with the lobby over the intercom, trying the buttons as the people at the desk there suggested, and wondering how long we were going to be trapped there. (You hear all sorts of horror stories.) Eventually, though, the elevator lifted us all the way up to the twentieth floor, where she and I got out — just to get free — while warning a gentleman on that floor that he might want to wait for the next one.
When we got to the lobby, the building staff were very apologetic and assured us the elevator was being taken out of operation until it was fixed. I’m still not entirely sure why they felt they had to ask for our names and the companies we worked for. When they asked over the intercom, it was with a “do you want us to contact your offices?” — which was almost like them asking if they should contact our next of kin. “Why?” I almost wanted to ask them. “Do you know something we don’t?”
But really, in the end, it was just fifteen minutes out of my day, and an interesting (if slightly panicked) fifteen minutes to boot. I mean, it’s no sitting at my computer all day, paginating manuscripts and staring longingly at my calendar for the next meeting — what? not til Thursday?! — but it’s something.
And this evening, when I left the office? Which elevator did I take? The very same one. Yep, right back on that horse.
Sometimes I miss the old office where we could take the stairs.
I swear, every time I get on the elevator at work — which isn’t often, admittedly, since I usually take the stairs — I experience this weird moment in the slightly-too-long pause between the car stopping and the doors opening when my hindbrain is convinced I’m going to be stuck in there, and the thought that flashes through my head, every single time, is, “Oh, crap, I don’t have a book! with me” Because apparently that is my single biggest worry about being stuck in an elevator.
I wonder if they offer to call so that trapped occupants don’t get in trouble for getting back from lunch late or taking too long on a break.
I have to use an elevator at home, and I always have a small flashlight and a book in my bag. Just in case. I’ve never actually been trapped. BUT I’M ALWAYS READY.