My mind wandered through the door sitting next to the elevator and up the four flights of stairs to the kitchen, the refrigerator, and my job. By the time my mind had climbed all the stairs, rounded all the corners, and made it through the door it was soaked in sweat and gasping for breath. It did not look good.
“Hey, Siri, how long can I leave a turkey sandwich with mustard and mayo at room temperature before it would kill me?”
“Just take the stairs and put your lunch away. You need the exercise, you know what your doctor said about your weight, blood pressure and glucose levels. Besides, the coffee maker is up there.” Siri replied, a little snidely, I thought.
“Next time I go to the doctor I’m leaving you in the car.” I said, but it was an idle threat, we both knew it.
I stared at the door and the hand lettered sign, really stared at the lettering, dove into it, looking for some hint the elevator was still usable. I looked for some hidden meaning, something deep, philosophical. Maybe it wasn’t the elevator. It might have been the small space in front of the doors. Maybe the blue tape was faulty, it looked flimsy. It might have been the sign itself, it seemed lifeless and feeble. It could have been the whole “Business model,” profits have not been what the owners wanted and now they were finally admitting we needed some new ideas. I have some ideas, a whole notebook full of them.
This might be my shot at the big time.
I called the facility manager. He was still asleep.
“Hello.” He was barely awake; his voice was low, and his speech was slurred with the remnants of sleep.
“Hey, is the elevator broken?” I asked, trying to sound unconcerned, as if I just call people and ask about moving parts all the time. I almost added something about being at home, just getting ready to drive to work. It was forming beautifully, a charming, delightful sentence we would talk about for years to come. I was just about ready to spring it.
“What the hell, Tim? What does the sign say?” He was wide awake now.
I thought about bluffing, claiming to have not seen any sign, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood for conversation. Not a morning person, I guess.
“Oh, there it is, I see it now. Talk to you later.” I hung up before he could respond.
I thought about all the things that were going to be carried up and down the stairs, boxes, bags, envelopes. Someone, probably several someones, would order delivery food, they always did when the elevator was broken, somebody would have a salesperson come for a meeting, tradesman, customers, they came in droves, they migrated when the elevator was not working.
I was stuck with three choices.
- Try the elevator, maybe it wasn’t perfect, but it might have one trip left in it. Just enough to get me to the coffee pot.
- Take a vacation day. But, one third of our department is on vacation already, so it could have caused some problems. I like to push the limits as much as anybody but that one might bring an agony that I wasn’t equipped to handle. A third of the staff seems like a huge number, but there are only three people in our department.
- Grow up, listen to Siri and take the stairs, and deal with all the fallout, and problems, and difficulties that come with broken machinery.
I went with option three. After 62 years I’m getting to be such an adult. But, I still don’t like it.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock
internal image courtesy of author
