preventive maintenance
The building I work in is old. It has a bank of six elevators in the main lobby and often they are on the fritz. It's not uncommon to see tens of people waiting to get a ride up to their floor.
Well, yesterday they were working on one of the elevators. The workers had placed a yellow vinyl gate around the opening of the elevator that said "Preventive Maintenance."
I found it interesting they used that phrase. It's a very subtle bit of "spin." I doubt they're ALWAYS doing preventive maintenance. I know a lot of times the elevators will get stuck between floors or will go to floors you didn't ask the elevator to go to. Often they are doing reactive maintenance. I guess it would be disconcerting for the gate to say, "You almost died on your last ride in this elevator," but really, we're all adults. We understand the trade-off. We can ride an elevator rather than haul our lazy asses up the stairs. We accept the risk - hold the patronizing coddling.
posted by roger at 11:28 AM
4 Comments:
I was once at a convention center that was rumored to be haunted (it was a former tuberculosis sanitorium). I was on the elevator it kept on going all the way to the top floor then all the way to the basement. It did this 4 times before it finally stopped and opened the doors on the wrong floor. We were just glad to get out. In my panicked state, I thought to myself "Oh my God, the ghosts are trying to kill me." Not even considering that the problem could be that it was just an old elevator.
4:09 AM
More semantics! I love this.
Actually, the building I'm working in now has the smallest & slowest elevators in Manhattan. In the morning we actually have to stand in a line waiting to go up to our offices.
9:20 AM
You have to love your job to wait in the lobby for more than 30 seconds for an elevator. Whenever that happens, I take it as a sign that I'm not supposed to go back to work at that moment and I leave the building for a walk.
9:04 AM
Janny: It's usually ghosts.
Nukie: I have been noticing increased hostility out of the comments section, so continue with the "coddling."
NYM: It's just that anyone young enough to fall for that wouldn't be able to read the words.
Joe: That's what I would do. Unfortunately, I'm on the first floor.
1:27 AM
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