Techotic

It’s eleven o’clock on a Friday night in October, 1999. 34 year old Business Week’s production manager Nicholas White was working late that night, he had just watched the Braves beat the Mets on TV. After the game he went down for a cigarette, his office was on the 43rd floor of the McGraw-Hill Building. When he finished his cigarette, he took Car No. 30 and pressed the button for floor 43.

It was an express elevator, with no stops below the thirty-ninth floor, and the building was deserted. But after a moment White felt a jolt. The lights went out and immediately flashed on again. And then the elevator stopped.

The control panel made a beep, and White waited a moment, expecting a voice to offer information or instructions. None came. He pressed the intercom button, but there was no response. He hit it again, and then began pacing around the elevator. After a time, he pressed the emergency button, setting off an alarm bell, mounted on the roof of the elevator car, but he could tell that its range was limited. Still, he rang it a few more times and eventually pulled the button out, so that the alarm was continuous. Some time passed, although he was not sure how much, because he had no watch or cell phone. He occupied himself with thoughts of remaining calm and decided that he’d better not do anything drastic, because, whatever the malfunction, he thought it unwise to jostle the car, and because he wanted to be (as he thought, chuckling to himself) a model trapped employee.

One good thing come out of this, smoking is bad for you.

[via newyorker]