as part of my daily work routine I find myself spending a disproportionate amount of time in various buildings around the CBD waiting for lifts to arrive, and then standing in the damn things waiting to be shuttled to the floor of my choice. (I would use the stairs more often than I currently do, but a lot of buildings now have the annoying ‘feature’ of locked/carded stairwell exit doors on each floor in the name of security).
Over the last few years (spent in the same role) many of the lifts I’ve travelled in have actually undergone ‘modernization’ as part of a greater push to spend money conform to H&S standards or whatever, to the point where even the most run-down office tower will often possess a couple of state-of-the-art liftcars with mood lighting, indiglo LCD floor displays, heated buttons, and soothing feminine voices that tell you to stand clear of the bloody doors you idiots. Which can be nice at times, but sometimes I consider it unnecessary – especially if it ends up altering whatever character the building may once have had.
anyway, it occurred to me recently while riding in one particularly crowded liftcar that even with all the modernization bullshit going on there’s probably any number of older, decrepit lifts out there in some of the less trafficked, smaller and/or less glamorous office towers. some crazy part of my brain decided that it would be fun to discover the slowest lift in the CBD in overall travel time (from one floor to the next) and perhaps also with other criteria factored in: most noisy, most annoying call tone, most likely to rattle itself to pieces, and so on.
A few people have suggested also trying the lifts in and around uni/AUT, and those in various other public facilities such as the Civic/Skycity and central library; while I guess I probably should (in order to present a fair comparison), the goal is to find the quintessential cruddy corporate lift that annoys the hell out of its office workers on a daily basis…
So at the end of last week I headed down to High St – home of fashionistas, expensive boutiques, one of my favourite bookstores, and conveniently, a high concentration of customer sites located in quaint buildings which I’m actively involved with for work purposes. Good place as any to begin my quest!
welcome to mine own 
