Zen and the art of elevator maintenance

The late Douglas Adams was strangely prescient in some areas.

The one that springs to mind is bad-tempered lifts - that prediction has come true here at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, at any rate.

Shortly after we moved to this building, a little over seven years ago, the lifts (there are eight main passenger lifts, one heavy goods lift and a rather dinky little 'fire' lift) were fitted with voices. Now these voices are all female; they are calm and reassuring and say things such as "Second floor. Going up". All extremely helpful and soothing, especially for our blind colleagues. As I said, that was about seven-and-a-half years ago. Of the main lifts only three remain this chatty; a further six have retreated into sullen silence and the last one has clearly had a nervous breakdown of some kind, and squeals banshee-like as the doors open and close, but remains tight-lipped at all other times.

This past ten days or so, the fire lift has developed a further personality disorder, too. It has been silent for three or four years, but it has always done its job.

Alas no longer.

No. Now it skulks away in ominous silence on the sixth floor bloody mindedly ignoring all attempts to tempt it to other floors except for an hour or so late in the afternoon when the lifts are traditionally in low demand as people wrestle with their computers.

It has been looked at a number of times by the maintenance engineers, but it refuses to co-operate.

At least it hasn't become abusive yet.

Zen and the art of elevator maintenance

The late Douglas Adams was strangely prescient in some areas.

The one that springs to mind is bad-tempered lifts - that prediction has come true here at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, at any rate.

Shortly after we moved to this building, a little over seven years ago, the lifts (there are eight main passenger lifts, one heavy goods lift and a rather dinky little 'fire' lift) were fitted with voices. Now these voices are all female; they are calm and reassuring and say things such as "Second floor. Going up". All extremely helpful and soothing, especially for our blind colleagues. As I said, that was about seven-and-a-half years ago. Of the main lifts only three remain this chatty; a further six have retreated into sullen silence and the last one has clearly had a nervous breakdown of some kind, and squeals banshee-like as the doors open and close, but remains tight-lipped at all other times.

This past ten days or so, the fire lift has developed a further personality disorder, too. It has been silent for three or four years, but it has always done its job.

Alas no longer.

No. Now it skulks away in ominous silence on the sixth floor bloody mindedly ignoring all attempts to tempt it to other floors except for an hour or so late in the afternoon when the lifts are traditionally in low demand as people wrestle with their computers.

It has been looked at a number of times by the maintenance engineers, but it refuses to co-operate.

At least it hasn't become abusive yet.