Frantic Elevators

I spend a lot of time in lifts. One lift in particular.

Every morning I press the code, and stand there repeating the mantra come on … come on … coooome oooon intently under my breath, until the universe deigns to smile upon the unworthy. Then the door trundles open without the slightest taint of haste. I jab at the second floor button, hoping nobody makes for the first floor, and wait again for the door to shut. The lift then has a moment of zen, composing itself into a concentrated point of stillness amid the vortex of the workaday world, before springing into action with the alacrity of sumo wrestler after a double hip replacement.

There are two reasons I hope no one enters the lift wanting the first floor. The first is that this will more than double the journey time. The lift seems to operate like a weightlifter, with a clean and jerk movement – there’s no set time for how long a weightlifter can huff and puff and tremble with stationary effort before taking the jerk up higher. It’s the same with the lift.

The other reason is that I don’t like sharing lifts. It’s not that I’m misanthropic. I just don’t class the journey as the delightful social occasion that some people do.

Take the other morning. I entered the lift with a young lady wearing lycra, a cycle hat and reflective goggles. I was relieved that she didn’t make a move when I pressed the second floor button and I prepared myself for the wait by staring at my shoes and inwardly reciting my morning auto-suggestion, every day in every way the lift is getting slower and slower …

Just as the door clunked shut, she spoke:

“Don’t you ever say hello then?”

“Eh?” I said. I don’t have much in the way of cheery conversation before noon.

In an accusing sort of way she said: “You never say hello.”

I think I said something like: “Eh … oh … erm.” Which I considered a nifty rebuttal.

“Why are you always so grumpy?” She asked as the lift sailed by the first floor with all the attack of a dinghy in the doldrums.

Lambasting a man’s temperament at an ungodly hour of the morning in the confines of a lift is unnecessary and unfair in a myriad of ways. I’d not even had coffee. And without 100mg of caffeine rocketing through my veins my brain doesn’t process things at its normal Apollonian pace. So I wasn’t prepared to defend my honour against the sort of person who is strong and tough enough to ride a bike to work in Leeds. I know the type. They have cycled the scenic route to Skipton and mixed their own muesli before I manage to crawl into the kitchen for the breakfast round of Co-codamol. They leap like frisky salmon into the shower. They don’t understand the sort of person who misses whole days owing to “the night before.”

Maybe if I’d done a Pro-Plus or two on the way to the office I would have been sharp enough to machine-gun a few well chosen profanities in her general direction. Or burp.

Instead I wittered something like: “Dunno … err … hmm … dunno really. I erm …”

By then we’d reached the second floor and she was out of the lift faster than Lance Armstrong at a urine test.

When I reached the office and had fortified my nerves with a flat white from Cafe 164 I thought about what she’d said. And I regretted not having time to explain why my demeanour can occasionally be misconstrued as grumpiness.

I come from Holbeck. In Holbeck the Yorkshire code is still strong; ‘ear all, see all, say nowt. Saying nowt comes natural. In Holbeck you rarely run into lycra clad ladies chirruping “Good morning … good morning! … and a jolly hello to you too!” Once in a while a neighbors Alsation escapes from the yard and tries to take a chunk out of your thigh but nobody says anything; a swift boot to the behind sorts the mutt. Talking is pointless.

I am also a notorious mumbler. I am capable of saying hello, after a fashion. But I am tall with strangulated vocal chords, so generally the greeting doesn’t get much higher than my adenoids.

Consequently, people think I am being grumpy when I am actually being sociable. I can meet people outside the lift and say something like: “morning you lovely lot, and what a glorious day it is! What delights are in store for you this fabulous morning, if I may ever so humbly enquire?” But owing to the habitual mumbling they mistake my camaraderie for a toxic case of irritable bowel.

And, after writing almost daily on this website for the last few years I dread bumping into people I don’t recognise but may have maligned. The conversation often goes like this:
“Morning.”
“Aren’t you Phil Kirby?”
“erm … yes …”
“Wanker”
“It’s a lovely day.”
“I hate what you write.”
“Doesn’t Leeds look glorious. Consider the slant of the sun on the Mecca Bingo, just gorgeous …”
“You make me sick. You’re just negative all the fucking time.”
“Hmm, yes, look at the clouds. Could rain.”
“Nobody pays you for that shit, do they?”
“Ha ha, got to go. Opera review to write.”
“Drop dead.”

This morning there was a conversation on Twitter about this very lift. Some people want to make an app for the lift that will recognise the occupants and interact with them personally. This is, in fact, my exact idea of hell. No doubt the lift will begin to recognise me and demand to know why I don’t talk to it nicely. Why am I so grumpy. Why don’t I make cheerful conversation like the lovely people on the first floor – even the new people on the Third floor make an effort to be nice to the lift, what’s wrong with you! Why do you need to be in such a bad mood all the time? Why can’t you cheer up and be nice? …

This is the future. Talking lifts. Lifts that monitor your every mood. Elevators in every sense.

It’s time to get an office in a bungalow.