Thursday, April 10, 2008

Stuck In The Elevator

I still haven´t found the time to post about the trip to Israel. I´ll try my best to do that soon, but the next weeks are even busier than usual.
On Sunday I met with some friends (Steffi, Steffi, Pauli, Hans) which I know through the net. Together we watched the musical Cabaret at Deutsches Theater. Except for Hans, who plays one of the roles at the musical. (Watch the second video on his website. It´s fun!) Though I do not really like musicals, I did enjoy Cabaret. You can watch a short video here. After the show we went for a drink (or two) to the bar Kr@ftAkt. Delicous cocktails!
Monday evening just before the shops closed I dashed into a department store (Karstadt Bahnhofsplatz) for some quick errands, but I didn´t get far. The elevator got stuck and nobody heard my banging on the door or my shouting. It´s really frustrating to hear all the people around you, but they don´t notice you. So I rang the alarm, which DID NOT WORK! I was starting to get scared, because no one was hearing me, the alarm didn´t go off and the store was about to close. I opened the door with my hands, but that was useless as there was a concrete wall before the door. Luckyly I´m not claustrophobic, but I was getting panicky as I didn´t receive any reaction. After 15 minutes the alarm seemed to work and a female voice started asking dumb questions: "Are you really stuck in the elevator?" "Why don´t you press the open door button?" etc. I couldn´t believe it. She didn´t quite believe me and further she said, that this elevator (with the # I had to pass through) didn´t really exist. I was becoming desperate. Then she was gone.
Then I heard all the customers leaving the store, 10 minutes later the sales people left and then everything was totally quiet. No more talking, no more sounds of the escalators, no music, nothing at all!
Foto: George F. Lee / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM

I rang the alarm again. After another 10 minutes a different lady´s voice appeared and she was shocked to hear that I had been in the elevator already for 45 minutes. She said she would take care of it and be back soon to tell me the news over the intercom. She was really nice and let me know that there were some guys on their way to let me out. So no shoping, just panik and stress. That´s the way the week started and continued...

5 comments:

Mim said...

Goodness - what an experience! and what an idiot that first lady was. I hope they were nice to you when you got out, and gave you free money and treats. I would have panicked and tried to climb thru the ceiling!

Kerstin Klein said...

well, when i got out of the elevator, everything was dark and quiet in the department store. and the two guys starting discussing whether they should shut off the elevator for the next day, or not. i couldn´t believe it.
and i had to ask them, to please let me out. so no money, treats, etc.! :) good customer service is american.
it is funny you mention this. benjamin said something like: "in the states this wouldn´t have happened to you like this. they would have at least apologized".
and i was still mad, that the first lady didn´t help. usually i don´t complain, but yesterday i did send off two letter (to the department store and to the security/emergency company) to complain.

Hans said...

bairische baurnschädl!

Kerstin Klein said...

exactly! ;)

littlemithi said...

OMG! I would so have had a panic attack - I've had one from being stuck in an elevator for 20 seconds. You SO deserve compensation from them - and that first lady should be sacked! What if you had a medical condition or something - could have cost your life! Well done for writing, but I would go in and shout at the management personally!