"Going down? Hope you're not in a hurry"

Leaving work last Friday afternoon seemed normal. The elevator came up to the 9th floor, I stepped in and punched the button for the lobby. On the way down, the elevator stopped at the 5th floor for someone to get on. The elevator doors closed, and the car budged a little but wasn't moving much. After a couple of minutes, we knew something was wrong.

Pushing the emergency call button didn't do anything. Pushing the appropriate button rang the alarm, but we couldn't be sure anyone heard it, or even realized someone was stuck. The other fellow managed to open the door a little, enough that we saw we were stuck between floors. Fortunately my cell phone receives a signal in the elevators, and I reached one of my bosses, who contacted building maintenance. While I'm fine with elevators per se, I realized I do not do well when trapped in relatively small spaces. We were stuck for about 15 minutes total before arriving at the 4th floor. From there, we took the stairs down.

That particular elevator has repeatedly been out of order for the last several weeks; clearly someone didn't do any necessary repairs properly. So I made it a point to avoid that elevator from now on. Then this morning I arrived at work to find the other two elevators out of order. The problem elevator was the only operational one, and only partially. Throughout the day, someone from maintenance had to ride with all passengers and manually bring the car up and down.

Not exactly confidence-inspiring. Our office is to move fairly soon to Rockefeller Center (one of my favorite parts of Manhattan), and this is another reason I can't wait.