A little late for the contest, but not late enough for sharing…
When the contest came out some months back and closed last month I really had no special Symantec moment to share. But today morning I along with four others (Alpa was one of the four) had our Symantec moment.
I call it “The 45 minute ordeal”.
Me and Alpa had gone for our daily breakfast (now, if I start describing that, it would be pages and pages of dull, boring yuck food). On our way back just when we were entering the new building or to be more precise I was opening the glass door with the “Please Use this door” label, I saw the second lift opening and a office boy entering. I ran for the lift. (The reputation of lifts in the new building is already not a rosy picture – they just don’t come) As we entered I saw that the lift was going to the first level basement.
I told Alpa, “Arrey!! let’s get out this is going down”. She said “no, no it’s ok. It’s better than waiting…” (sigh!!!, that was our last chance) Three more people joined us from the lower basement. (They never got a last chance)
All were talking in tandem with each other, when suddenly there was a jerk and the lift stopped.
We thought may be some problem the lift will start soon. 2 minutes and then the panic started sinking in. The lift wasn’t responding to any of our requests, wasn’t going down, wasn’t going up and the display as it is doesn’t work so we didn’t know where we were.
Hmm… there is some problem.
Here I would like to introduce you to my fellow ordeal-mates, Alpa, A guy in red tee, a guy in pink shirt and a tall slim girl. The guy in red reacted instantly started pressing the alarm. The pink shirt also started pressing the alarm from the other side. 5 minutes more and still no response. We started checking our signals – this is when the difference sets in .. Idea ho ya Airtel no one works at the time of crisis.
I had to put in my views in action now, so I told the guy in pink that we should bang the door. We both started banging the door, nothing happened again!! 5 mins of more banging and alarms… Almost 15 mins gone by now (don’t add up the minutes this is rough estimate, you don’t know the time when you are hanging :D ). It was too much no response, what the …!! Okay so now again I got an action plan, lets open the doors… the two guys open the door and then me and pink shirt started shouting…“Koi hai, koi hai..helllooooo hellooooo !!” Somebody responded after some time, we asked him to call someone and also asked, hehehehe this was the first time we knew where we were, “where are we?” Got the answer, you are hanging between the 1st and the 2nd floor. Ooops!! Took a step back and saw it now!!
But thank god, somebody is listening to us. The feeling that at least some one knows that we are stuck was a heavenly one. Then the jokes cracking started. I would have never ever gone and asked who they were and which team do they work on etc etc.
See, the positive thing about being stuck in the lift you get to expand your network… (and people say, you can’t be positive in a crisis) The red tee guy was Avik Shau, pink shirt Chaitanya and the tall slim girl Prachi. All the three from CDPR –NBU group. So after the small introduction it was time to get back to work. What?? Work?? Yes fellas, current work assignment was contact people. Due to the opening of the door, some Idea signal peeped in. The problem with airtel is, it is everywhere. Sab jagah jaoge to work kaise karoge. So people with idea started calling up whoever can help.
By that time people had gathered outside the lift. Every time we opened the door we had smiling faces looking at us giving us hidden reassurance that we would be out soon. I feel that was hidden coz for some time I felt they were having the funny moment with us jokers inside the lift. Had a round of snap taking, videos and joke cracking sessions.
I forgot to mention how helpful the music of soldier was, it just pepped up our moods for a moment. Before “soldier soldier” started playing there was the usual music playing, the music from down south. No bias against it but when you are stuck the least you want to hear is someone playing slow karnatic music. A small reminder over here we were not in there for meditation.
Ok, ok so now people started working on getting it started. The facilties team was here. We knew there was some work going on coz the fans started, the lights went on and off for some time.
I had to request the facility team to stop the fan. It was either we’ll be stuck all day or get ill with pneumonia. After this the moment of Symantec had gone and all 5 of us were concentrating on checking out whether the lift is moving. Oh, that reminds me. One of Avik’s colleague was giving us second to second update on the lift fixing activity. The best was, for 5 mins he kept on saying “Arrey, kuch hua!! Kuch to ho raha hai!” Well, none of us felt anything happening.
After around 10 mins the lift seemed to be moving down, then up and then down.. finally up. And and it opened… hallelujah hallelujah!! We were on the 4th floor now. Nobody gets out of the lift as fast as the five of us did. There were different activities that happened after that, finding the stairs, then going down to the basement and then the bravery of coming to the 2nd floor by the same lift. Phoooooo!!! Over is the ordeal.
I would really like thanking people who got the facilities into action. At least I know of Tejas doing that. Thanks Tejas. Oh yes few more!! Thanks to all those people who were out there when we called out and for kept our morale up. Also thanks to all the people with me Alpa, Avik, Prachi and Chaitanya. Thank you guys for making it fun! :) Hush hush!! there’s a secret to share over here (except for the initial moments, it was a fun experience) ;)
I love the old lifts with those grill doors more now and using the stairs seems to be a more healthier than ever. :-) Well, that’s it for my Symantec moment. THE 45 minute ORDEAL…
Cheers,
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