Office Worker Nightmare
More than planes hitting buildings, this is my office worker nightmare: trapped in an elevator alone, thinking its going to drop to the basement at body-killing speed any second.
Today this very fear happened to someone who works on my floor but for another company – she was trapped in the elevator for ten minutes at lunch hour. Apparently the elevator was acting up all morning but had just passed inspection by the Otis repairwoman when it trapped the office worker.
Luckily, the Otis people were still onsite and were quick in unlocking the doors and freeing the trapped passenger, but not before the shaken woman went through at least one round of queasy stomach “I’m gonna die!” panic attacks in her confinement.
As I left for lunch, I took the stairs.
That’s what I hated about the Columbia Square building. I couldn’t use the stairs when I knew the elevators were acting up. There was no publicly accessible set of stairs, it was aggravating.
I got stuck in my apartment building’s elevator alone returning home from a Fourth of July party–it went up to my floor, but the doors wouldn’t open. I had to call 911 and the fire fighters had to come get me out. To their credit, they arrived in just under 30 minutes–but it was a pretty scary, frustrating and sweltering (no a/c in the elevator either) half hour for me. I’ve been taking the stairs in my building ever since.