Aharon
08-02-2005, 01:09 PM
140 years ago the first "safety" elevator was installed by the Otis company in New York. Oddly enough, 140 years later, they still dont have it right.
Yesterday I was using the elevator of a prominate business building in Tampa to reach the 6th floor of the outside parking garage. When my journey upword started, the first thing I noticed was the intense 120F heat inside the small box that was moving me upwords. The outside conditions were approacing 100F, and this elevator was even hotter. Where is the air conditioning in this thing, I wondered. I could hear a fan of somesorts, pushing the hot air around.
I must stop this story to also say that the elevator was also occupied by the now famous Political Man and myself.
When we reached the 6th floor, the elevator stopped. But the engine that was driving us upwords was still running at full force. That wasnt a good sound to hear, or feel let me add. When the doors went to open, they only opened about 4 inches. We were now rewarded with the door motors trying to open the doors at full force.
What a lovely symphany. The sound of the elevator still trying to go up, the doors motors trying to open, the fan that pushes hot air around, and now the sound of the alarm going off as I hold down the alarm button.
No amount of force could open the elevator doors from their 4 inch opening. So, I used the emergency phone located inside the elevator. After waiting several minutes for the 1,000 digit number the thing dialed, someone picked up. Unfortunatly, either the noise in the elevator was keeping the speaker phone from working, or the speaker was messed up. Becuase all I could ever hear was like every other syllabol the person said. Does anything work in this god forsaken elevator!
We have been in this thing now for a total of 10 minutes, drenched in sweat, with heat stroke on our minds. No one has yet come to rescue us, even with the continuous alarm.
Political Man does the unthinkable and does a running jump kick on the elevator doors, and they finally open.
This morning, I pushed the up button on a different set of elevators. Just in time to watch the up button turn itself off, even though no elevator ever arrived.
After 140 years, havent we figured this out yet?
Yesterday I was using the elevator of a prominate business building in Tampa to reach the 6th floor of the outside parking garage. When my journey upword started, the first thing I noticed was the intense 120F heat inside the small box that was moving me upwords. The outside conditions were approacing 100F, and this elevator was even hotter. Where is the air conditioning in this thing, I wondered. I could hear a fan of somesorts, pushing the hot air around.
I must stop this story to also say that the elevator was also occupied by the now famous Political Man and myself.
When we reached the 6th floor, the elevator stopped. But the engine that was driving us upwords was still running at full force. That wasnt a good sound to hear, or feel let me add. When the doors went to open, they only opened about 4 inches. We were now rewarded with the door motors trying to open the doors at full force.
What a lovely symphany. The sound of the elevator still trying to go up, the doors motors trying to open, the fan that pushes hot air around, and now the sound of the alarm going off as I hold down the alarm button.
No amount of force could open the elevator doors from their 4 inch opening. So, I used the emergency phone located inside the elevator. After waiting several minutes for the 1,000 digit number the thing dialed, someone picked up. Unfortunatly, either the noise in the elevator was keeping the speaker phone from working, or the speaker was messed up. Becuase all I could ever hear was like every other syllabol the person said. Does anything work in this god forsaken elevator!
We have been in this thing now for a total of 10 minutes, drenched in sweat, with heat stroke on our minds. No one has yet come to rescue us, even with the continuous alarm.
Political Man does the unthinkable and does a running jump kick on the elevator doors, and they finally open.
This morning, I pushed the up button on a different set of elevators. Just in time to watch the up button turn itself off, even though no elevator ever arrived.
After 140 years, havent we figured this out yet?