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On Saturday evening, I was trapped in an elevator for the second time in my life. If you’re curious, I wrote about the first time in this post.

This time around, it was about 7pm, I had decided I wanted a coffee after dinner. To treat myself, I was going to get a Starbucks. Before leaving my apartment, I debated on whether or not to order my coffee using the app on my phone, so it would be waiting for me when I got down to Starbucks. I made the decision to hold off, just in case something delayed me. That would be a wise decision as I would soon find out.

Earlier in the day, my building was down to one elevator as the other one was apparently out of commission. As I waited for the elevator on my floor to go down, I was surprised to see the elevator that was supposedly “broken” stop at my floor, doors open, beckoning me to go in. I paused for a bit but I thought that if the elevator was in service and showed up on my floor, that would be a sign it was all fixed.

I stepped inside, pressed my desired floor, and was looking forward to having a nice coffee soon. The elevator descended eight floors when it suddenly lurched and the brakes were applied very quickly. I was alone in this elevator. It had stopped on the 20th floor. I waited to see if it would continue it’s descent, either in a normal fashion or in a free-fall. A minute of waiting yielded nothing. I wasn’t going to the lobby but I pressed that floor anyways. The button did not light up. None of the floors lit up when I pressed them.

I probably waited another two minutes before I decided this elevator was indeed stuck and nothing I could do inside was going to change that. So, for the second time in my life, I pressed the “help” button inside a stuck elevator. The call was answered after the second ring, quite quickly to my surprise. The person on the other end said hello and I told them I was stuck on the 20th floor. They asked me to press the lobby button for ten seconds. I did so but nothing happened. They then asked me to press the “door open” button for ten seconds as well. Nothing again. At this point they said they’d get back to me in a minute but not before making sure I was ok and not suffering from any immediate problems. I said I was fine.

The call ended and I waited for about a minute. The speaker on the panel came to life again as there was another person on the line. I didn’t know that you could actually call into the elevator and initiate the call from outside. That was interesting to learn. I didn’t know if this person was at the elevator company or downstairs in the lobby. The new person asked for my name, wanted to know if I was still doing ok, and offered to call or text someone on my behalf. I told him my name, said I was doing ok still, and no, I didn’t need him to call/text anyone because I had my phone on me (which had signal).

This new person told me that I was the second person to be stuck in that elevator today (more on that later). A service person (possibly two even) were enroute to the building but they were about 15 to 20 minutes away but once there, they would do everything possibly to get me out right away. After making sure I was ok again, they told me they’d check in with me in about five minutes. They then hung up.

I was left to just wait. Five minutes passed but no new call came. I could hear the other elevator moving up and down next to the one I was trapped in. Five minutes became ten. I checked my phone and it was down to 46%. I decided I probably needed to ration my battery, just in case. I wasn’t going to waste it playing games or being on the Internet. I put my phone on airplane mode so it would have to keep sending out signals, which would save a lot of battery.

Ten minutes became fifteen and nothing was happening. I debated with myself about sitting down but the carpets in these elevators are super gross, so I kept on standing. At the twenty minute mark, I swear I heard some sorta banging or some indication that there were people just outside the door, working on something. I didn’t hear any voices however and no one called out to me. Five minutes later the elevator started moving without any warning at all. It went down one floor and stopped at 19.

The doors opened and a nicely dressed couple was about to step into the elevator. I explained to them they probably didn’t want to use this elevator and where I’d been for the last 30 minutes or so. They heeded my advice and all three of us took the stairs down to the lobby. I was expecting to see some repair dudes there but I saw no one.

I still hadn’t gotten my coffee and after being trapped, I really wanted one. Thirty minutes later than I had expected, I was on my way to Starbucks. When I returned to the lobby with my coffee, the offending elevator was sitting with doors open at the lobby, locked out from being used. I still didn’t get any explanation as to why that elevator was allowed to be put into service, trapping two people on the same day. If the elevator isn’t fixed or unreliable, it shouldn’t be allowed to be used. I will ask the strata council or the property manager for an explanation.

There are sick people all around me in all aspects of my life. The guy at work who has his desk next to mine is very ill with a terrible cold. He looked and sounded awful on Tuesday. He soldiered on and dragged his ass to work on Wednesday somehow. That afternoon, I looked over to see him with his head on his desk, eyes closed. I felt very sorry for him. He thankfully decided to take a sick day and stayed home today.

Everywhere on transit I hear people sniffling and sneezing. Strangely, I don’t hear many people with coughs. It’s just runny and stuffy noses. Weird. I’d like to end this week with my health intact. One more day to go. I’m gonna go wash my hands again.

Conan doesn’t play video games but he got to visit Kojima Productions nonetheless. It looks like he might even be in Death Stranding!

The final trailer for the new Star Wars movie came out this week. This will be the third and last movie in the latest trilogy of the movies that started when Disney bought Lucasfilm. I have not seen the trailer and don’t intend to. I have become quite disillusioned by the first two movies. Overall, my opinion is those movies are quite frankly, terrible. As with many adults, I became a huge Star Wars fan when I was a child. Child me would be very disappointed in how little joy I derive from these latest movies. The first one, The Force Awakens, was a poorly executed rehash of parts of the original trilogy. The second, The Last Jedi, had a nonsensical plot and even featured a first in Star Wars lore, a low-speed chase through space.

I care for none of the new characters in this trilogy. I have nothing invested in their story and each one could live or die at the conclusion and I would not feel one way or the other. As maligned as the prequel trilogy was, it made me an even bigger fan of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I hold in great reverence the story of old Ben Kenobi, his life, his adventures, and his impact on the galaxy. I feel none of that for any of these new characters.

Will I see this new movie in December? Yes, eventually, just to close the chapter on this. I’ll see it once and be done with it.

My first officially sanctioned “work from home” Monday was wonderful. I got about 30 minutes more sleep than usual but was actually logged into my work computer and working about ten minutes earlier than if I had to commute to the studio.

It rained like a monsoon outside today but that had no bearing on my work day because I didn’t have brave the elements with all those other commuters. I stayed in warm and dry in my PJs all day.

Now you might find this hard to believe but I actually got a lot of work done today. My new desk is in a tightly packed cubicle farm and I can usually hear about four different conversations around me at any given time. At home, there’s no need for headphones because it’s just me.

I wrote this before but I’ll write it again, there’s no need for me to physically be in the studio for my current assignment. So when I go into work tomorrow, it’s mainly to appease managers who get kinda nervous when their workers work remote 100% of the time.

In a few weeks, I may float a suggestion that I work two days a week at home. Before that though, I need to back it up with results. I need to show them I’m making progress with what I’m doing. Let’s see how it goes.

For the foreseeable future, I get to work from home on Mondays now. Since I’m working for a team that’s based in San Francisco and I’m the only one in Burnaby that’s in the same boat, it doesn’t really matter if I do my work at the studio or at home. So, I’ve negotiated that I get to work at home on Mondays. Technically, I don’t need to be at the studio at all, but I think the higher-ups would get nervous if I didn’t show up ever.

In the past, I’ve randomly worked at home because of either sickness or if I had to be at home to let a maintenance person in. This is the first time in my career where I’ve had a regular day that’s set aside where I can work from home. I’m really looking forward to it!

I’ve gone over a week without a hot water dispenser and I gotta be honest, during that time, I’m less hydrated than before. There have been some nights where I’ll wake up and I’ll be super parched, thirsty as hell. Without the dispenser, I drink less water. I know it sounds ridiculous since I have a kitchen sink with a fully-functional tap but I rarely just drink tap water since it’s not warm. To cope, I’ve been boiling water in a small saucepan but it gets cold and I gotta reboil the water after I drink some. I guess I just get lazy and I don’t bother reboiling it, which leads me to drink less water. I’m just accustomed to drinking warm water on demand for so many years now.

Well, I shall be parched no longer as my new hot water dispenser should be arriving either tomorrow or the day after. I shall be parched no more.

In the above video, YouTube star chef Andrew Rea attempts to make the $5 milkshake from Pulp Fiction. The interesting metric for this is the dollar value. Adjusted for inflation Rea tries to make a shake that comes closest to the $5.

I actually had no idea where my new desk was this morning. Even though I had seen the location on a map, I’d never been there, in that exact spot before. It took about two minutes of randomly walking around before I spotted the guy who sits next to me, after which I followed him to my area.

It took my about two hours to unpack, arrange, and connect all my equipment together. There are so many wires for all my monitors, TV, dev kits, and computer. Because my desk can move up and down via an electric motor, I had to place my computer on my desk surface as well. I’ve never done that before. It does take up a bit of space but it prevents cables from having to be super long to accommodate the rest of the desk moving.

The consensus is that many people on our new floor, myself included, are packed in tighter than on our previous floor. I used to have a bit more space next to and behind me. There also seems to be less light in our area. I believe this is because our windows now face a massively tall concrete retaining wall. Previously, I had windows that had a clear view of the sky and the mountains to the north. It was picturesque. Now, all we see is grey.

I have yet to work in a standing configuration for any length of time. I gotta try that out tomorrow.

In my last post, I wrote about how I’m moving desks, two floors down, at work. My whole team is moving with me from the fourth to the second floor. There are a few pros and cons of the move. We have a patio on the fourth floor and it was nice having one close by in the summer time. The second floor doesn’t have a patio. Being on the second floor, does make it easier to get to my desk and to leave work. Being four floors up, I used to take the elevator up and down a lot. On the second floor, there’s really no reason not to take stairs.

The cubicles we’re moving to on the second floor are not the same as the ones on the fourth. They have all been converted to sit stand desks. This means it’s easy to configure the desk for standing as well as sitting. Sitting all day at a desk is bad for your health, so many office workers are now standing for portions of their day.

I’ve never had such a desk before, so it’s gonna be weird to be standing while working. I think it’ll take some getting used to but in the long run, it should be better for me. I’m not sure how it’ll work with all the wires I have on my desk. With my keyboard, mouse, two monitors, TV, two Playstation 4 dev kits, and an Xbox One dev kit all on my desk, there are gonna be lots of wires that will have to move with the desk. I’m guessing you want to minimize the amount of wires that stay stationary and are anchored to a non-moving surface. It’ll be interesting unpacking everything tomorrow.