Friday, 25 April 2008

  • Elevators

    This post was started a week back, but I got distracted and never completed it... here it is now, complete

    My office is on the 11th floor. In a city like Bangalore, this rare occurrence offers me an amazing view… an entire city spread out below my feet.

     
    But then, to reach there each day, I have to take the elevator.

     
    Our office block has four elevators. They’re not exactly speedy, but they get the job done. But when you’re on the 11th floor of a 13 floor building, you are stuck at the mercy of all those souls with offices below yours. On a trip which starts out on my floor, with me as the sole occupant of the lift, hoping to reach ground quickly, there has to be a set of people getting in and out on the 2nd to 7th floors. All these floors house the same company. Now why would you wait 3 minutes to take a 20 second elevator ride when you could walk down that single flight of stairs? I just cannot imagine…

     

    See, I have no problem with people taking long elevator rides… Starting out at the 2nd floor and going to the 6th or 7th is still acceptable. But waiting for the elevator just to go from the 6th to the 7th? Or even worse… going downwards (in the direction of gravity, where the stairs become really, really easy) for just one floor?

     
    According to one friend, in a company like that, There are too many people anyway… they just don’t have enough work. As a result, every elevator ride they take, wastes that much more of time that they’d otherwise just while away in front of the computer. Maybe its time Accenture started laying off people.

     
    And some of these people are just plain dumb… They’ll get into the elevator in a large group, and even though they know each other, and know who’ll be getting off at which floor, they somehow contrive to position themselves so that at every floor, the alighting member is as far from the doors as possible, and maximum movement of everyone else. (Maybe it’s an actual phenomenon… something like ‘the bread always falling butter side down’)

     
    Even more hilarious is one incident that occurred a week back. Our block happens to have a mezzanine floor and as a result, the floors above it (2nd floor onwards) correspond to a different floor on the adjoining tower, a fact that only needs to be kept in mind by those employees moving through the connecting floor (7th on our tower, 8th on Tower B).

    But this chattering female gets on with a friend at floor 6, presses the button for the ground floor, and then asks… “the Ground floor here is the same as that of tower B, right?”

    Err… Ground floor? The one that’s usually at the ground level?? That’s common for almost everything???

     

    Sheesh.

     

     

     

     

    In other news, go see Kutt’s and Tvk’s Blogs… guaranteed stitches in your sides.

     



Comments (9)

  • anonymous

    Haha... But given your workout enthu, I'm surprised that you haven't given up on the elevator... 11 floors must be a piece of cake for the 'Macho' Wonderboy!

    Here's another similar problem...

    3 elevators... 6 floors... Canteen's on the 6th floor which means at any point of time there are lots of people wanting to go to the 6th floor.. exits on the 1st... which is again a popular choice at HP :) ... people usually get very impatient & end up pressing all 3 lifts without having the sense to wait.. A lift going up usually goes up all the way till it reaches the top-most floor where it has been called for (be it from the outside or inside)... Can you come up with an algo to minimize the waiting time?? (Working on it coz I've nothing better to do... but def could do with some math geek's help!!) :)

  • themanwhothunk

    @Sriram - elevators usually come preprogrammed with algos to minimize the time taken by them to travel.

    i've got a simpler one for you.

    Wait for the elevator going up
    Then walk down.

  • anonymous

    nah... not the HP ones..

    but yes... ill take ur masochistic advice.. btw did i tell u that i work on the first floor and have my lunch outside... hmm!!

  • anonymous

    hmph at least you don't have to live in the same buildings with gossiping aunties who call the lift and then forget to board it because they're busy finishing the last dregs of tales of kantabai's misadventures. The lift waits, you wait, they're still going yak yak yak......

  • ryasa

    Haha! Nice blog with quite a few entertaining links.

    PS: I think every big company is overstaffed! ;o)

  • anamika_b

    yes!! I totally agree.. I personally prefer the stairs..less time consuming on most days!


    ryc: SOME imperfections are what make some people absolutely adorable, methinks.. :)

  • themanwhothunk
  • Outkast86

    you have dumb blondes in office?

  • themanwhothunk

    @Outkast86 - They're not in my office.. they're in the company lower down (Accenture)

    and yes, Dumb Blondes is the perfect way to describe them.

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