ButtUgly: Main_blogentry_040408

Party Fun

Yesterday, I was just leaving work and going to the shop for some orange juice for the morning, as I was met with some old colleagues who were going to go to a send-off party of another old colleague. So I figured, what the hey, I'll join them and switched my orange juice to a couple of bottles of beer.

So, of course, the sendoff party was in a sauna (all parties in Finland are held in saunas), which was on the top floor (all corporate saunas are in top floors, naturally. The CEOs office does not rank as high as the sauna, and thus typically is only on the next floor). To get there, you use the elevator.

Which got stuck between floors, with a loud beep and a bang.

So, we stood there, nine of us in a very small, cramped space, with pizza and beer, everybody shedding clothes (it was getting somewhat warm) and traded stories of people stuck in an elevator over the weekend, drinking their own urine or whatnot. The alarm system just kept telling us that "yes, you are stuck in an elevator, please wait for someone to contact you."

Luckily, the building was filled with engineers, who were working late. And engineers have a tool for everything - in this case, one of those keys that open elevator doors from the outside.

So, no worries, a few minutes later we were climbing out of the elevator and greeted the rather amused crowd outside.

I don't know if this story has any morale, but lately my life has been somewhat busy (this morning is the first one in about two weeks when I haven't been speaking on the phone at 9 am already. I run the phone battery down before noon these days.) So in a way, getting this forced break in busyness, thanks to broken technology, was kind of welcome. It's good to be thrown off of the track every now and then.