Elevator Action

In life, there are a few things that I see in the movies that I expect to happen to me personally. Saving a damsel in distress is one of them. Getting stuck in an island full of bikini-clad Victoria's Secret models is one of them. Ruling the world aboard a satellite planet constructed out of modeling plastic with enough power to wipe out the earth is one of them.

I'll tell you what's not one of those dreams.

GETTING STUCK INSIDE AN ELEVATOR AS IT PLUMMETS A COUPLE OF FLOORS DOWN, BEING JARRED BY THE EMERGENCY BREAKS KICKING IN, AND HAVING TO EXIT A HALF SUSPENDED ELEVATOR THAT COULD EASILY START FALLING AGAIN AND BREAK MY BODY IN TWO.

*ahem* I never even remotely thought that was possible with all the modern technology we have. Apparently, safety features are for movies. I'd feel like such an action hero right now if I had a leading lady in my arms.

But it's not like I've experienced drops like that before. I regularly ride rollercoasters and those rides that shoot you up in the air and then let your seat freefall with only your harness preventing you from a very embarassing death. No big deal - except that for those occassions, you have a seatbelt on and you can be assured that what's happening is "normal".

Apparently having the same thing done to you on an ordinary elevator isn't as fun. I literally dropped to my knees because of the impact. In fact, it was nowhere near fun. More like "I'm going to have fun mutilating whoever I can blame for this little incident."

So I rode another elevator down (a working one) and headed over to management.

At the management, I was greeted by one of the admin who could easy have won the Grumpies without competition. She was, to my memory, the same wiseass who told me before to keep my own phonelines "safe" so it can't get accidentally cut by their technicians again when I just asked for a simple log system for all workers entering the telcomms closet. What "safe" means, I still don't know. It must be a marijuanna thing.

Anyway, I tell her the elevator 1 is broken. I think part of me died when I heard her reply. "We know. The repairmen arrived earlier. They say it's probably from the broken controls." Great.

So here's a person who actually knows the elevator is broken, and sits idly in front of a TV monitoring system that routinely shows the reaction of people who try to ride the broken ele-fucking-vator.

Am I in a freak reality TV show of sorts? Are those cameras being fed to commercial TV? Is it that much fun to watch people being dropped a couple of floors?

At the back of my head, I tried to rationalize. Maybe she's not that sadistic. Maybe there's a reason for everything. So I ask, "Then why are you still allowing people to use Elevator #1?"

All logic went out of the window after her reply. I was too stunned to even give a nice reply. By nice I mean "So-help-me-god-you-will-be-sleeping-in-the-streets-for-your-stupidity" kind of reply.

She said "A lot of people need to use the elevators. We don't want them inconvenienced."

Right then and there, I was convinced. Satan has a dayjob.