At about 1pm, I realize that I'm starving, haven't had lunch, and should probably do so before my 2:30pm meeting. Typically, I grab my phone, wallet, and ID and head down to the cafe on the 1st floor (I work on the 6th) Today, since I planned to be extra swift, I grabbed my credit card and ID and headed to the elevator. I press "1" for the first floor and ride down alone.
The elevator begins its descent. When I get to the first floor, the doors do not open. The number 1 on the digital display begins to flash and all the lights on the button panel go out. Laughing, I hit the door open button (aka the two arrows pointing away from a line in the middle) Nothing happens. I then scan my badge and hit "7". Nothing happens. Then all of a sudden, the lights on the panel come back on and the elevator starts going up. At the 4th floor, it stops. Again, the doors don't open. I play with the buttons for about 5 more minutes...the panic is slowly starting to rise. Also, I started to feel hot (it's like 94 degrees with 80% humidity today). I stare at the buttons on the wall. I don't see anything that says "call" or "emergency" or an icon with a phone or anything.
The only thing that looks remotely useful is an icon of a bell. I push that. An alarm clock noise proceeds and remains for as long as my finger is pushing down the button. I'm not sure what that actually accomplished so I start knocking on the door to see if anyone is outside. I hear voices...there's gotta be someone out there. There's a door at the bottom of the wall with a knob, so I try to open that. It's locked. Okay...now what? I'm basically starting to talk to myself and tell myself I'm an idiot for not bringing my phone. I stare at the buttons for about 10 more minutes trying to figure out what I should do. I hear some people outside again so I start banging on the door, yelling for help, and telling them I'm stuck.
I mean, I can hear them! Surely they can hear me too, right?! But if they hear me, why is no one saying anything back.
At this point, I'm vacillating between this:
and this:
Since I had no watch, it's hard to say how long I did this. After about what I think was 20 minutes, I decided that I should just ring the bell and pound on the door some more. I intermittently pushed down the button and banged and yelled for a while (maybe another 10 minutes). Then I started to feel hot, and sweaty, and like the air was being sucked out. I retreated to the corner and rocked myself like an autistic child, wondering how long I'd have to sit there, wishing I'd used the bathroom before, and wondering if I got hungry enough, would I eat my shoe. I really hoped not, because these are new kicks and I really like them. After about 10 more minutes, I heard what sounded like really close talking. I jumped up, pounded on the door some more, and shouted for help. Finally, someone heard me. They said they would alert security. I sat down and waited some more.
Finally, some dude with a crow bar starts trying to break into the elevator. I could see his fingers, but he couldn't get it open. He asked me if "we" were alright. I told him I was alone and he asked me if I was okay. I told him I was going to throw up soon. He said to sit tight and he'd have me out of there "quick as a bunny." Now, I don't know about you, but that seems like it should be pretty damn fast. Wrong again. I sat there, slightly bouncing, praying that the elevator didn't plummet 4 stories where I would most certainly meet my untimely demise. Luckily, after about 5-10 more minutes, he finally broke me out. I ran out of that elevator like I was on fire, hiked back up the 2 flights of stairs, and went into the lab where I very promptly had a panic attack. I was gasping for air, I felt like I couldn't breathe, and even worse, I was still hungry.
I had a meeting in 10 minutes so I tried to pull it together as quickly as possible. When I get to my meeting, it turns out that 30% of the people in the meeting heard the alarm and were annoyed that whoever was stuck on the elevator kept ringing the bell. I asked them why they didn't help me and they looked at each other and looked at me and had no good answer. Most of them were like, "what was I supposed to do?" Uh, I don't know...you're sitting in a conference room WITH A BLOODY PHONE!!! Call security, dumbass! Or, maybe...just maybe...GET OUT OF YOUR DAMN CHAIR and walk over to see what all the fuss is about? It turns out, everyone thought someone else would take care of it, thereby leaving me a sweaty hot mess, huddled on the floor of an elevator for over an hour.
I might write into John Quinones and have him enact this debacle on an episode of "What would you do..."
No comments:
Post a Comment