Tuesday 25th July 2006

I was just thinking today, what must the most unenjoyable job in the world be that isn't stereotypically dirty, poorly paid, demeaning, or dangerous? I was trying to think what the worst 'normal' job must be. Here's my suggestion, it's working in the call centre that takes calls from people stuck in lifts.

Whenever you're in a lift, elevator, call them what you will, there's an emergency button that promises you'll be put through to an operator if you're in trouble. Presumably there's a call-centre that deals with these calls. It's probably wrong to call them 'calls'... 'desperate cries for help' is probably more accurate. If you work answering calls for the emergency services, you're going to get the odd awful call where something terrible has happened, but you're also going to have idiots phoning up because they can't work the remote control or something - you know the way people are. People ring 999 because the kettle wont heat up and stuff like that. Timewasters. But if you work for the company that handles calls from people stuck in lifts, aside from bored teenagers and drunkards pressing it for a laugh you're only going to get one type of call - abject panic.

'Hello. Otis Lifts."

"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH."

That's your day. Dealing with claustrophobic, rabid and hyperventilating lift users stuck between men's fashions and electricals. And that's not just something you have to do for a whole day, which would be stressful, this is something you'd have to do month after month.

I can't imagine having to sit in a car, or on a train, walk through the wind and rain to an office on an industrial estate, make yourself a coffee, enjoy a bit of chit-chat with a friendly colleague, sit down at you work station at three minutes past nine, but on your headset, press a flashing button and

"AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH. I'M STUCK IN A LIFT. HELP ME! THE LIFT'S STUCK! I CAN'T BREATH. I THINK I'M SUFFOCATING."

It's no way to start the day. Nobody you speak to is going to be calm and civil. "Oh hi, sorry to bother you, it just seems that I'm stuck in the lift. It's in Boots on Church Street, Liverpool. Uh-huh. That's right. Great. And if you could make it a priority that would be super because there's a woman having a baby and a child's urinating in the corner. Thank you. Thank you for your time."

People are only going to be manic - crazy. A lot of people have a lift phobia, like a fear of flying buy only 'flying' up and down a concrete shaft, and I'll bet that one in five people would panic if a lift stopped between floors. If its stopped long enough for you to assume it's broken and press the emergency button (I think the British would be too reserved to press the emergency button too quickly - we wouldn't want to cause a fuss) then most would be panic stricken.

And what do the call centre people tell the people stuck in the lift? I assume they tell them the fire department has been called, but to a panicked person this is just going to create images of death or danger and probably wouldn't help. They could tell them they're going to get an engineer out "but that could be a couple of hours" which isn't going to help. There's no secret code you can punch into the lift, using the floor buttons, to correct the situation. It's not like when your computer crashes. So not only do they have to talk to demented, out-of-their-wits callers all day, there's really no practical help they can even offer. Terrible job.

How does the lift get put through to the call centre anyway? There's no phone, just an intercom. I assume there's a phone line leading from that lift, into a switchboard, and then out... I'd like to know how that works. And the state of most lifts... All battered and graffitied aluminium inside. You know those intercoms aren't going to work. I'd really like to test every emergency button in the next ten lifts I get into to see how many connect me to a human voice. Imagine getting stuck in a left late at night, with an odd person, pressing the emergency button and getting a recorded message "This is Otis lifts. We're sorry our office is currently closed. Our hours of business are 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday. If you're stuck in a lift with an odd person outside of these hours I hope you've got some water and a fine line in small talk. Please scream an obscenity after the beep."

On another lift related issue...When your standing in a lift and the doors begin to close, and someone rushes up towards it so you hold the doors for them, or they barge in causing the doors to reopen, and they select a floor only one away from where they currently are, do you try to make them feel guilty? I do, but it never works. I don't know how to subtly make someone feel guilt for laziness. You could be sarcastic: "Stairs out of order?" Or rude. There are a million rude things you could say. But how do you make someone feel a bit guilty without challenging them in any way? Please send me your experiences in this field. Also, what other ideas are there about the lift emergency call centre? I think it could be a stand-up routine but need a few more directions. Send me some so I can steal them and take all the credit. Thank you.

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