Elevators are an amazing piece of technology we overlook every time we go to the office or return home to our apartments or go to the gym. (It's leg day. Cut us some slack.) While we may hesitate to use them now, in the time of COVID, there exists a mystery in the back of our minds every time we step foot into one: What's at the bottom? Surely all kinds of stuff must have found its way to the bottom, but what exactly slips through the cracks between the car and the shaft wall?
Turns out, a lot of gross stuff.
Reddit user, Posted byu/diegomkt, wanted to hear about the strangest of the strange when they asked:
Oh, Just You Wait...
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Keys. Trash. Bugs if the building is exceptionally sh-tty. Mostly dirt and dust.
Found a paint roller that the last guy left there once. It was stuck to the floor.
What? I Was Done Eating It.
Definitely women's underwear and the weirdest call out I had was a freshly eaten chicken wing in the track causing a car door close failure fault on the 26th floor.
Clearly, This Is Where The Party Was
I am a Elevator maintenance person. And i have found lots of strange but funny things. The best being anal beeds in one pit and a dildo 3 or 4 yrs later in a elevator pit in a different building. The worst being used rubbers and hypodermic needles. Whats wrong with people?!!!!
Unconventional Spooning
Approximately 30 pounds of silverware in a very high end hotel chain. The job was to clean down the service elevators and kitchen cars. According to the drivers license I also found, they had not been cleaned in over twenty years.
They were the absolutely filthiest ones I've ever seen, and I've worked on one in a poop-water treatment facility.
BAT!
Not at the bottom but rather at the top. Long ago I was an assistant to the gentleman that worked maintenance for a public library. There was a bat trapped in the top of the elevator shaft. We somehow crafted a net from stuff we had around and caught the bat and released it outside. Interesting walk down 2 flights of stairs and through the library floor.
Sounds Like The Start To A Fun Weekend
This question should be my jam, but unfortunately I've never found anything interesting. $2 coin once, a dime bag of some unknown drug, plenty of syringes, or sets of keys. It's mostly just peoples junk mail and empty chip bags down there.
Tired Of Doing Their Job
A few years ago one of our elevators stopped working. Turned out when they opened it up they found a 3-ft pile of guest folios that were never delivered to the rooms. Later when we looked on the camera we found it was a security guard that got tired of delivering them to the rooms and instead dropped them down the elevator shaft. He did this for months until he was caught.
Guest folios?
When you check out from a hotel, they normally deliver you a folio underneath your door. It's the receipt showing the charges for your stay.
Someone Call John Wick
The elevator guys in my dad's office complex found pieces of a dog's skeleton. Not the whole skeleton, just random parts.
Not Going To Take No Anymore
Bundle of Watchtower magazines (Jehovah's witnesses pamphlets) wrapped in duct tape.
Inside it was a Rossi .44 Special revolver and a screwdriver.
...Ew.
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Worked security in a large department store, we routinely had to pop it open to retrieve dropped keys, wallets, and phones.
Recovered a $2500 gold necklace covered in poop.. a would be shoplifter darted out of our jewelry department and "suitcased" the necklace while in the elevator. When he realized we were waiting for him at the exit level he went back up a floor, removed it, and dropped it down the shaft.
We arrested him anyway, much to his surprise.
What A RIBBIT-ing Tale
I once found a colony of frogs and toads. This was in a parking garage and the guy that was with me said that he had never seen so many frogs in his entire life. There had to have been close to 300+ frogs in there and we still never found out how they got in there
Simple Item, Complex Payment
Not weird but was sent out to a callout because a property owner had said one of their tennants dropped a $10 note down the lift shaft between the landing and car door sills and wanted it back. Get to the job, go into the lift shaft, jumped in the pit, recieved the $10 note and handed it into reception. Signed out of the job and client was billed $350 for the callout.
Where Does All The Runoff Go?
Elevator mechanic here. I have plenty of horrific stories, but I think the worst one may be from working in Chinatown in San Francisco. Responded to a trouble call and when I raised the elevator up, the pit was filled with 1000+ gallons of blood and water. It was a freight elevator inside a Chinese poultry butcher shop and they would just spray the floors clean. Lowest point of elevation in the building was the elevator pit and the sump pump had stopped working.
Groooooooooss
How about in the top of the shaft? 23 feet of seagull droppings. Got a call that the car moved UP too slowly. Seagulls flying over had filled the top 2 stories of the shaft. We only had 1 guy willing to clean it out. Took him an entire weekend. We also made them cover the top of the shaft.
Best Hiding Spot Around
A leader of my LDS congregation in Provo, UT, was an Elevator Technician at BYU - Church owned university. He used to clean and service the bottoms of the elevator shafts on campus. The ones in the student center Wilkinson building was always littered with incredibly prurient pornography of every ilk. He surmised it was the most anonymous way for dorm students to get rid of the salacious material before room inspections or parental visitations!
Thank You, Elevator Maintenance Employee!
I once accidently lost my drivers license down the little gap in the elevator doors, just dropped it and was super unlucky as it slipped through. It turned up in my mail 10 years later! Obviously long expired, but still crazy some maintenance guy found it and bothered retuning it.
So Long As Your Spirit Is Young, You'll Never Grow Old
My dad has a great story about this. He supervised the mechanics, and one of them called him from a mental hospital and said "you've got to see this". The maintenance guy was called because the elevator wasn't quite sitting level on the ground floor; it was about half an inch too high and both patients and staff had been tripping on it. But all other floors were no problem.
My dad arrived to find the maintenance guy cackling, looking into the bottom of the shaft. There were probably tens of thousands of magazines down there. They had to get a bunch of shovels, a small crew, and a rolling dumpster to clear it out. When it was all done, my dad decided to stay behind and pretend to read a newspaper while he sat in the lobby. After about half an hour, he sees an elderly patient holding a magazine, shuffling slowly toward the elevator.
He stops in front of the doors, glances left, glances right, and quickly stoops down, slides the magazine into the gap, and shuffles away as fast as he can with a huge grin on his face. My dad could not help but laugh hysterically. This guy had probably been sliding magazines in there multiple times per day, every day, for decades. I should ask him whether he reported it or let the guy have his fun. Wouldn't surprise me if my dad went with the latter.
Wait For It...And Learn...
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Worked at a hotel. Guest dropped their phone down the shaft. After a few failed retrieval efforts, we called the elevator guys. They went down got the phone and also found a carton of eggs. Rotten, but not cracked. I don't even understand how that could happen accidentally.
Because it was no accident.
I work in tech now but while I was in college I helped an HVAC guy and he once had me put a carton of fresh eggs in the duct of a client's office that had stiffed him before.
When I asked him why I was doing this he said "if this motherf-ck doesn't pay up, he's going to have a new issue."
But then the guy paid two days later and I was sent to retrieve the eggs. He called it his "99¢ insurance policy"
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But we should also be prepared and ready to ask the right questions to have a leg up on the competition.
"What is THE best question to ask on a job interview?"
A company's history or information about a past employee were suggested subjects appropriate for questioning.
Prior Knowledge
"When you were interviewing here, what would you have liked to know before you joined?"
"This worked for me. I asked my interviewer a question about how she had personally dealt with a company policy she had just explained. She bragged about her stellar adherence to the policy. I nodded my approval. I got the job."
A Previous Employee
"One that has always gone over well for me:"
"What were some qualities that the previous employee in this role brought to the job that you would like to see carried forward?"
"Another good thing to do is research the company you are interviewing with and you can ask things about what they may be involved in or you could drop that while reading about the company, you wondered this."
Hypothetical questions were suggested as helpful examples of inquiry.
Indicators Of How Companies Treat Employees
"A question that landed me a job once was: 'If I asked your direct reports about your management style, what do you think they'd tell me?' Stumped a hiring manager and he emailed me personally to tell me about it, no one ever asked him that question but got the job.
"In my current interviews I'm asking 'what did your company do for its employees during [the virus] to improve their day to day, work life balance, etc.' and I ask 'Is there anything your company adopted during [the virus] that they plan to keep post [the virus]?"
"These questions give a lot of insight into whether a company treated their employees well."
Past Performance & Adjustments
"If we were currently sitting in my 1 year review, what would I have done in this year for you to say I excelled in my role?"
"If I could snap my finger right now and change anything about your job or the company, what would it be and why?"
The following questions about a prospective company may not be answered from initial digging on their website.
Measure Of Success & Career Trajectories
"How is success measured in this role?"
"What are some possible career trajectories within the company that could stem from this position?"
Being A Solution
"Ask them what is the biggest problem you can solve for them in your first six months with the company. Similar to 'don't think of a purple hippo,' this forces them to imagine you succeeding in the position."
Simply The Best
"Who is your best employee and why is he/she the best?"
"You will then face 2 situations mostly:"
"panicking CEO who can't answer you 'Bob who works 17 hours a day for a slice of bread' so the fear in their faces must be a big nono for you"
"entusiast CEO who actually follow their business and can tell you who is an added value for the company and why."
– ThePiz91
My experiences with job interviews are different than others seeking work in office environments.
Having had a years-long career as a dancer, my "interview" was the dance audition, where hopefuls dance in small groups of people at a time after learning a routine and then awaiting their fate after the panel evaluates their performances.
The question I may or may not have asked in such a scenario earlier in my career was: "Did I make the cut?"
I did not make the cut. And I learned never to ask that again.
I remember the worst date I ever had. My biggest regret is that I stayed for the entire thing. I should've left as soon as I realized this was not going well, which was basically at hello. But he was paying so I drank, a lot. I'll keep names and dates to myself to protect the innocent.
0/10
Big Brother Reaction GIF by Big Brother After DarkGiphy"Went to brewery, date said I had hairy arms and that meant I was horny, said "you look really awful in this light" and then tried to dig out of that hole by saying in his native language that was a term of endearment long term couples said to each other. 0/10 did not date again."
Lucky 13?
"My wife wanted to plan our 13th wedding anniversary. I was excited because usually, I plan it. She bought us some new disc golf discs and after a quick supper, we went to play. We hadn't played in forever. We were laughing and I had a great time. She served me with divorce papers and told me that the date was a test to see if she still had feelings for me. I also learned that she was having an affair that started well before our anniversary."
- rmorlock
Two Hours from Home
"Not necessarily a date but a person I was dating invited me to his parent's house for the afternoon. He wanted to introduce me to them and show me the house he grew up in. I thought it was super sweet and had no problems going. He was also in the middle of moving and needed to pick up a few things, so it really didn't seem that unusual."
"Yeah, we got there and it was awful. His entire family was there. They traveled from hours away too. This was not just meeting the parents, it was meeting the ENTIRE family. Even worse? At some point, this idiot told his parents that he had proposed. We had been dating TWO months. I spent the entire afternoon dumbfounded and just playing along."
"We were two hours from home and I had no cell service, no way to leave at all. We ended up spending the afternoon brainstorming wedding ideas and planning an Alaskan honeymoon that his parents planned to gift us. His brother even called to say congratulations! We drove back to his apartment in silence. When we got there, I got in my car and left, didn't even bother grabbing my stuff. Weirdest experience ever. I have no idea how he broke it to his parents that we weren't getting married."
You're Cut Off!
"Got set up on a blind date once between mutual friends. She shows up to the restaurant already a little tipsy, orders multiple appetizers and only takes like one or two bites from each one. Then she proceeds to order 3 or 4 more drinks and is visibly drunk at this point. She gets up and says she's going to the bathroom and staggers off. About 15-20 minutes go by so I try to call her several times but no answer."
"Finally I decide to pay the check and just leave. About 2 hours later I'm sitting at home and I get a call from an unknown number. It's the police department. She was picked up on a DUI on her way home after she ditched me and gave the cops my number to see if I could go bail her out!"
- mox44ah
Sorry?
Bbc Three Idk GIF by BBCGiphy"Well, I gave this answer on a different topic, but it ties in with this. We were out on a date, we had been seeing each other for a while, close to a year maybe. She gets a phone call. Suddenly she looks destroyed. Her fiancé had just died in a motorcycle accident."
What in the world? I mean how can we ever expect to pair off with the dating pool being inundated with liars and nut jobs? I'm going to delete my apps.
Girl, Bye.
Sassy Beyonce GIFGiphy"Had a girl openly flirt with the bartender in front of me. She says she wasn't. But handing him her own phone and asking for his contact info in front of her date seems like it to me."
Crazy!
"Came out from a movie, late at night, and date's Camaro was stolen. Apparently, he called his WIFE (that I did not know he had) and let her know where he was and what happened. She showed up and realized he was on a date! She started chasing ME around the parking lot telling me she was going to kill me. Saved by the cops who showed up just in time to take the auto theft report."
Hey Mom
"Met a girl at a country bar one night in my 20s. We were both pretty drunk but hit it off pretty good. Ended up getting her number and we agreed we'd go on a real date. Fast forward to the date, she gets in my vehicle and... she looks almost identical to my mom. I was mortified. I was polite and we went for lunch where I found out she also had a boyfriend she "wasn't sure if she was into". Never talked to her again."
- SgtGo
Liars...
"When I was in college many years ago, before the advancement of cell phones and social media, I was chatting with a girl I met on a BBS who lived on Long Island, NY. I was 18 at the time, but lied and said I was 22 because she said she was 25. We spent a few weeks emailing each other, as well as calling each other."
"We even exchanged pics. When we finally met up, things blew up. Turns out we both lied about our ages: She was really 33, and lied because she thought she looked younger. She admitted she sent a college photo to me. We still had dinner together, but it was awkward as hell. We never spoke again."
Doubles
Kill Me Now Season 1 GIF by FriendsGiphy"It was a double date. She was more interested talking to the other girl throughout the whole thing. Found out later from the other guy that his girl cheated on him with my date."
Ummm... I think I'm just going to stay single. That is a handful of crazy. Why can't people just be honest? I swear the search for love warps people's brains. Be careful out there people.
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