Ghost in the Machine

I was riding up in the elevator this morning. Alone. I get off on the seventh floor. When I got in, for some reason, the button for floor 3 was lit. I thought little of it. Maybe someone was being funny and hit 3 as it was coming back down to the lobby.

I stopped at 3. No one got on. No one got off. My journey continued.

Next, for some inexplicable reason, the elevator stopped at the 6th floor. “Odd,” I thought. The doors opened. Again, no one got on. No one got off. No idea why I stopped here.

I looked down again at the buttons for each floor. 7 was still lit up. Only, now, the button for floor 11 was lit up, as well. “WTF is going on here?” I don’t know if I thought this or if I said it aloud. I’m known to have audible conversations with myself.

At this point, I was getting a little concerned with what was going on in the elevator. I don’t know if maybe I wasn’t alone. Or if there was some sort of malfunction that could potentially send me plummeting down the elevator shaft to an untimely demise. Though, I’ve heard something about jumping at the moment of impact to reduce the chance of severe energy. I don’t know how true this is. Or if I’m just imagining it. I wasn’t ready to test it out. Especially, as it just now entered my mind, not at the moment when I could have used that information. With my luck, I would have been lying in a heap under a crushed elevator and then thought, “Maybe I should have jumped.”

Later this morning, I was in the lobby talking to my wife on the phone. The fire alarm for the building went off. My coat was upstairs. It’s cold outside. I got ready to go upstairs to fetch my coat. Because, while it is 20 degrees warmer than yesterday, as I said, it’s cold outside. The fire alarm stops. I breathe a sigh of relief. I won’t have to be like a salmon swimming upstream to go up seven very steep flights of stairs.

Then the fire alarm sounds again. I get ready to go upstairs again. The alarm stops. When it goes off for the third time, I get smart. I started to text one of my coworkers to bring my coat down. The alarm stops again. To keep a long story long, the alarm went on and off a total of 5 or 6 times. The last few, I kept preparing to text my coworker to grab my coat, and canceling the text each time the alarm stopped.

I finally go to head back upstairs. One of the elevators (a separate one from the elevator I mentioned at the beginning of this tale) had its doors stuck open. “Great,” I thought. Or said out loud. I still don’t know if I’m using my inner monologue or not. I trekked up the seven very steep flights of stairs to my desk. Out of breath, I tell the coworker who sits across the aisle from me about my ordeal. “No alarm went off up here.”

This is great. I don’t know if I’m being haunted by a ghost or if I’m giving off some sort of electromagnetic pulse that is causing these electronic anomalies or what is going on around me. Either way, I’m being cautious the rest of the day.

I will keep you updated if any further disturbances occur. Unless an elevator plummets to the lobby with me inside. In which case, I’ll let you know whether jumping when it crashes to the ground works. Unless it doesn’t.

“Going up?”

You will pay for your wrongs

I was headed downstairs. At our old building, that would mean going down a couple of flights of stairs. Now, we’re on the 7th floor. I’m lazy. So that means a ride down in the elevator. Have you seen how steep those stairs are?

The elevators seem to take about an hour and a half to get to our floor for some reason. That means when the elevator gets there, you make sure you get on it by whatever means necessary. I have, on more than one occasion, broken the now removed Rules of Elevator Etiquette by sticking an arm or any available appendage between the closing doors to make sure I don’t miss it. Sometimes the sensors don’t seem very sensitive. The doors wait until they actually hit your hand before they reopen. Many times I’ve envisioned my severed hand riding down the elevator I just missed while I stand in the elevator lobby, only upset that I now have to wait for the next car. The hand can be retrieved by playing a game of elevator roulette trying to get the car containing my missing hand. But I need to be wherever I’m headed now. I’ll fetch the hand later.

Today was not one of those instances. I was casually walking into the elevator, listening to whatever radio station was streaming to my phone at the time. As I stepped through the doors, the elevator decided to seek vengeance for all of my law-breaking days, closing the doors as soon as I was between them. No severed hand this time, but it did manage to time the closing doors to hit my shoulder. This apparently made my hand flinch. The flinch was enough to dislodge my phone from my grip.

It all happened so fast that I didn’t know what had happened. All I know is that my music stopped and my elevator associates laughed. That’s when I realized my hand was empty. I looked down as the doors reopened. Sitting on the floor of the elevator lobby was my phone. Luckily, as I had imagined several times, my headphone cord detaching from the phone slowed the fall enough to protect it from cracking the screen…again.

That wasn’t the elevator’s plan, though. No, it wasn’t enough that I could have had to pay to fix the screen or suffer with the cracked glass until the new phone is released. It had a much more nefarious intent. My phone landed mere inches from the crack in the floor between the elevator and the floor proper. Had it not disconnected from my headphones at the exact moment it did, it would have careened stories below. To its death. Never to be retrieved.

Dramatic reenactment

When I realized what had just happened, I grabbed my phone before the elevator could make its next move. There was no doubt that the elevator wasn’t done yet.

Aside from the monetary loss, I don’t know when I last synched my phone. That means I have no idea how much data would be lost. Important data. Matters of life and death, I’m sure. The elevator did not care. All that mattered was that I pay for my misdoings.

Elevators are jerks.

Planning ahead

We moved into a new building at work last December. It’s ok. I guess. Not super fond of it. But it is what it is. The biggest annoyance is the use of our ID badges. You have to use your badge on the stairwells and the elevators to get to any of our floors.

There is a significant display between when you swipe your badge and when it is accepted. I found this out the hard way one day. I stepped into the stairwell to attend to a personal call. I hate those people who take them at their desks, shouting loudly about board games they are inventing or cursing at their wives. Yes, both have happened. Yes, it was the same guy. Yes, it was a daily occurrence at one time. I swiped my badge and couldn’t open the door. I ran down 7 flights of stairs, all the way to the lobby. All so I could catch the elevator back up to the floor I was just on. It turns out, if I had simply waited 2 seconds, the door would have opened.

The same swipe and wait game must be played on the elevators, as well. Every day, I try to time it so I swipe then hit my floor number once. Instead of the 8 times I usually try, where it lights up, then goes dark again. It’s dumb.

This morning, I forgot my badge in my car. I realized this as I stepped into my building. A mere 10 minute walk from where I park. And it’s raining. Luckily, there was a woman in the elevator who was able to swipe her badge for me to get to my floor. I achieved proper floor selection with 2 button presses. No worries. When I have a lull in meetings, I’ll run back to my car and grab my badge.

My morning was clear of meetings, so after a cup of coffee, I decided to make the run. I headed for the elevator. No badge required to go to the lobby. It only took 3 button presses to get there. FYI, the “< | >” is to hold the doors open. It won’t take you to the lobby.

As I got to the lobby, I realized I left my umbrella at my desk. It’s still raining. No worries, I’ll take the underground tunnel to the other building, which gets me halfway to my car. Except you need a badge to use the stairwell to get to the basement. Mother… I guess I’ll walk outside. In the rain.

I got to my car, half drenched. I reached for the door to unlock it. You know, it has those fancy locks where you just need the keys in your pocket to unlock. Your keys which are in the pocket of your jacket. Which is at your desk. Time to schlep back through the rain to my building. Outside. In the rain.

As I approach my building, I remember I need my badge, which is in my car, to get to my desk, which has the keys to my car. Catch 22. Stuck. Rain. What to do?

As I weighed my options, I saw a homeless man on the street. He had a slim jim in his hand. A light bulb appeared over my head. As it fell to the ground, it hit me. I brushed off the broken glass and paid the homeless man a dollar for his slim jim. I took the slim jim and headed back to my car. In the rain.

I stared at my car door. Then at the slim jim. Then back at the door. Time to snap into it. I leaned against the car door and lifted the slim jim. I tore open the packaging and bit down. Spicy meat always calms me.

Now to sit and wait. For what, I’m not exactly sure. Divine intervention, I guess. I’m not really sure. I’m sitting by my car, eating my slim jim, reminiscing on the good ol’ days. A more innocent time. A time when I had no worries. A time when the Macho Man was still with us.

FML.