Not Quite Spiderman

Continuing my series about confident people who shouldn’t be, I’d like to take a moment to give special kudos to a retired custodian for my building at work.

The man used to transport floor cleaning equipment through the building during high traffic moments. Then he would complain violently when it seemed that other people would also be using the elevator.

It is necessary to stop and describe the elevator briefly. The doors remain closed at all times, unless the elevator has been called and is on your floor. If the elevator is in use, the “in use” button lights up and it ignores all call commands. It is not a complicated system.

That is, unless you are a cranky, confident old man. On two (TWO!) separate occasions, this guy became too impatient with the elevator to wait for the doors to open for him. He therefore got out one of his tools, wedged it between the elevator doors, and pried the doors open wide enough to enter.

There are many things that make that a bad idea. However, he took this concept to new extremes by failing to check if the elevator was actually present on his floor before entering the shaft. That’s right. On two separate occasions, a grumpy old man pried open a huge pair of elevator doors and stepped through into black nothingness -- only to fall down the elevator shaft. He survived only because he kept doing this on the ground floor. There, the fall is only about eight feet.

Confidence like that is rare. On one level, he really is just like a super hero. But I still say he’s not quite Spiderman.