Friday · June 27 2003
What am I supposed to look at when I ride the elevator? The interior is all mirrors and everywhere you look, you're looking at someone. The mirrors and the silence make all of us uncomfortable. Why aren't we allowed to talk in here? I'll just hold my breath in the future and I'll close my eyes too. Then I can't offend you. We can all file out -- ladies first of course -- and hope we don't bump anyone. Because in public, we now know that people shouldn't touch, smell, look at, or listen to other people. We can only do that in the privacy of our homes (and until yesterday even that was sometimes wrong and oh so immoral, c'mon).
I like the elevators in some of the professional office buildings i've worked in that either have CNN playing, or weather updates, or just overall news pages that change. This way, even if you're not interested, you don't have to think about how much you're avoiding the interaction with the other people.
However, when in the right mood, I definitely start up conversations with people I'm riding with. Especially if it's 10+ stories. And I try to avoid the whole weather conversation that always goes like this:
Me: Great day outside, isn't it?
Other: Oh, definitely. Beautiful.
Me: Too bad we're stuck inside the office. ha, ha, ha.
Other: ha, yeah, too bad.
"Ding" - doors open, exit.
I try for the non-typical conversation, but sometimes you get pinned as the "weird guy that talks to you in the elevator".