The Five Stages of Being Trapped in an Elevator

There's a phone in the front lobby at the building where I work. On a couple of occasions, customers with appointments have used it to call me when they realized my office was located on the third floor. They've told me there's no way they're getting on the elevator to come upstairs. For these few individuals, their anxieties require us to make alternate arrangements, which usually results in our meetings being relocated to a vacant desk on the first floor.

It's a small accommodation, but an important one, especially for people with a strong enough fear of elevators that they would rather confess their phobias to me than to take a deep breath and bear the five-second ride up. The mischievous part of me would like to tell them that there's nothing to worry about. I should know. I was stuck on that very elevator they're afraid to get on for over 45 minutes. And as best as I can tell, I've suffered no ill effects.

Really, it's not as bad as you might think. Most of us probably get our preconceived notions of what the experience is like from the movies, which either portray it as dangerously claustrophobic or a serendipitous way to hit it off with that office worker you've never had the courage to talk to before. Rest assured, neither of those scenarios were close to what I went through.

First off, I was all by myself, which I considered a blessing because I would have been in no mood to slap soothe someone else whose first inclination would have been to freak out. Still, when the doors closed and I discovered that the buttons weren't working, it didn't immediately register that I might be stuck. [DENIAL] Every employee has an access card that allows them to move freely between floors, and initially I thought it was the card that had malfunctioned. But after a couple of minutes of trial and error, I decided to step off and use the stairs instead--except the "open door" button wouldn't work either, and it's functionality is completely independent of the access card.

Oh crap.

"Don't panic," I said to myself, "I'm sure there's a way to get the doors open. Just go to plan B." That's when I started rapidly pressing the "open door" button. OK, plan C then. I pried my fingers into the gap between the two elevator doors and tried pulling them apart. I've heard of people having enough adrenaline that they were able to lift entire cars for a few seconds, so I thought this plan might work on the same principle.

Unfortunately, I was much too calm for my body to trigger the fight or flight response. I created a space of a couple of inches, but then the doors snapped back suddenly, like they had missed lunch and wanted my digits for an appetizer. There was no way that I was going to sacrifice any extremities, even if it would have led to a movie deal, so I started to scan the ceiling for the escape hatch.

You've got to be kidding. There's no escape hatch? Every elevator has a little door you can climb through to access the elevator shaft. I just saw that one guy do it in a movie a couple of days ago with...oh right. Stupid Hollywood.

By then, I was running out of options, and as much as I hated the thought, I figured it was time to start banging on the doors and screaming like a banshee so that someone would hear me and go get help. But just before I began putting fists to metal, I noticed the emergency phone cover right underneath the button menu. Of course. Why didn't I think of this in the first place? All I've got to do is dial the number of my supervisor, and she'll have maintenance come get me out with a crowbar.

I opened the emergency phone panel. No phone. In it's place was a silver box with one central button that looked suspiciously like an intercom. The only words printed on it were "you're toast." No, that's not right, it said "HelpLink." It didn't come with instructions, but since there was only one way to interact with it (besides yanking it out of the panel and throwing it against the wall), I pressed the button and hoped for the best.

Beep, boop, bop, beep, boop, bump, beeeeeeep...

"This is Stacey," said the voice on the other end after several seconds of silence, "can I be of any assistance to you today?"

I was so relieved that it wasn't a recording that I forgot the thirteen different sarcastic replies I could have used to respond to that question.

"This is Danny," I said unemotionally. "I'm stuck in an elevator, can you call for help?"

Sure, she said. She told me she had the direct lines of several people in the building that she would call immediately. She then asked me if I was OK. The question sounded sincere. What a sweetheart.

"I'm fine," I replied.

I wanted to sit down on the floor, loosen my tie and wait for the calvary, but someone had shampooed the elevator carpet earlier that day, and it was still damp. It was around 2:15 in the afternoon at that point, and if I was expected to go back to my desk and work after my extraction, I certainly wasn't going to deal with soggy briefs for the rest of the day, so I just squatted and leaned against the wall. [DEPRESSION]

Five minutes passed without the sound of any stirrings outside. Those five minutes turned into ten, which turned into fifteen, and by the twenty minute mark, my quads were burning and my patience was completely eroded. [ANGER] I pressed the intercom button again.

Beep, boop, bop, beep, boop, bump, beeeeeeep...

"Hello?" asked a familiar voice.

"Hi Stacey. I'm still here." [BLAME]

She began apologizing profusely. The phone numbers she had on record were for managers who were no longer with the company. All three of them, dead lines. She had been able to get a hold of a company that specialized in unlocking elevators, but they were en route and still a good 15 minutes away. Not satisfied, I asked Stacey for a small favor. I gave her the direct lines of three co-workers I knew were in the office that day and asked her to please call them. She obliged.

It was only shortly thereafter that I heard approaching footsteps. It was Brian, one of my associates.

"Hey Danny, you in there?" he inquired.

"Yep."

(Muffled laughter) "Don't worry," he said. "Richardson is coming down with his key."

Richardson was a vice president on the top floor who was in charge of the building. He had a key that was supposed to override the door locks from the outside. Except it didn't work when he tried it. What a surprise.

"Hold tight," he said, which is what I had been doing for almost an hour anyway.

Pretty soon, the elevator specialist arrived, climbed down into the elevator shaft (lucky dog), and was able to pry the doors open just wide enough from above to allow me to jump through. There were several people standing around with silly looks of bemusement on their faces, including a receptionist who couldn't have been sitting more than fifteen feet away from the elevator doors the whole time. Sure, there were glass doors separating her area from where I was, but still, I probably should have pounded on the doors and screamed like a banshee when I had the chance.

Lesson learned, I guess. [ACCEPTANCE]