Travelling Lift Style!
"I have seen many people wandering aimlessly around the ground foyer trying to work out how to catch a lift....they must be thinking to themselves "that's a newbie" or "sucker!" "
Working in the Sydney CBD can be lots of fun. In reality its quite a small CBD when comparing it to other large cities like London, Paris and New York. Though, having never been to the Big Apple I will have to rely on hearsay! The good thing about Sydney is that it's easy to walk around and get from, say, the Opera House to the Sydney Tower quite quickly.
As with most big cities architects have used their creative inspiration and designed large tower blocks that have interesting (some might say bizarre) interiors. One of the offices that I work out of certainly has some 'interesting' features.
At present I work out of two offices which are approximately 15 minutes walk between them. One is definitely one of the top office blocks in the city, with superb views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The other is a much smaller block which is situated close to the Harbour Bridge and has extremely limited views. Actually the only view we get is of a small holiday apartment building which enables us to see tourists sitting on their balconies, or swimming in the pool on the ground floor. Sometimes the views get quite interesting!
Anyway, digression aside, if you are visiting the smaller office block for the first time you may have trouble catching a lift to go to the floor you want to visit. When this block was being designed the architects must have been smoking some rather weird substances. Normally when catching a lift you would get in a lift, push the floor number you require and the lift would take you there. Well this isn't the case at this location.
What you have to do is push the floor number on a keypad located in the main foyer area. On the keypad a letter of the alphabet appears. You then have to try and find the correct letter that corresponds to your lift. On more than a few occasions I have seen many people wandering aimlessly around the ground foyer trying to work out how to catch a lift. Rumour has it some people can spend weeks at a time trying to get to get to level 10!
Maybe that's why there always seems to be a commissionaire on the ground floor. Actually, they must be thinking to themselves "that's a newbie" or "sucker!" when they see the aimless expression on the face of someone who is trying to find lift 'H'.
Once you have mastered the keypad and sprinted to catch the correct lift you are then exposed to the next lot of fun! Inside the lift is a small monitor that displays pictures. Now this is not uncommon as a number of office blocks will advertise shops within the building, or reveal news, business and sport highlights. However, this lift displays pictures of, wait for it, mountains!
Why mountains? I have no idea. The first couple of times you see them you think "wow" or "this is cool" by the fifth time you are thinking "this is weird". Having caught the lifts in this office block for 11 months I can tell you I am now impervious to the pictures. The other strange thing is that the floors that the lift is going to are displayed on a thin strip next to where the doors open. Quite often new visitors have trouble working out which floor is which because of this.
One side issue that has arisen from this is that when I visit the other office (aka the Mothership), I sometimes forget to press the floor number. So rather than going to level 23 I end up at level 39! After 5 minutes of travelling up and down the floors I eventually get off at my correct destination. Albeit late for a meeting!
So if you are in Sydney take care when catching a lift, especially if it's in a small office block close to the Harbour Bridge!
Working in the Sydney CBD can be lots of fun. In reality its quite a small CBD when comparing it to other large cities like London, Paris and New York. Though, having never been to the Big Apple I will have to rely on hearsay! The good thing about Sydney is that it's easy to walk around and get from, say, the Opera House to the Sydney Tower quite quickly.
As with most big cities architects have used their creative inspiration and designed large tower blocks that have interesting (some might say bizarre) interiors. One of the offices that I work out of certainly has some 'interesting' features.
At present I work out of two offices which are approximately 15 minutes walk between them. One is definitely one of the top office blocks in the city, with superb views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The other is a much smaller block which is situated close to the Harbour Bridge and has extremely limited views. Actually the only view we get is of a small holiday apartment building which enables us to see tourists sitting on their balconies, or swimming in the pool on the ground floor. Sometimes the views get quite interesting!
Anyway, digression aside, if you are visiting the smaller office block for the first time you may have trouble catching a lift to go to the floor you want to visit. When this block was being designed the architects must have been smoking some rather weird substances. Normally when catching a lift you would get in a lift, push the floor number you require and the lift would take you there. Well this isn't the case at this location.
What you have to do is push the floor number on a keypad located in the main foyer area. On the keypad a letter of the alphabet appears. You then have to try and find the correct letter that corresponds to your lift. On more than a few occasions I have seen many people wandering aimlessly around the ground foyer trying to work out how to catch a lift. Rumour has it some people can spend weeks at a time trying to get to get to level 10!
Maybe that's why there always seems to be a commissionaire on the ground floor. Actually, they must be thinking to themselves "that's a newbie" or "sucker!" when they see the aimless expression on the face of someone who is trying to find lift 'H'.
Once you have mastered the keypad and sprinted to catch the correct lift you are then exposed to the next lot of fun! Inside the lift is a small monitor that displays pictures. Now this is not uncommon as a number of office blocks will advertise shops within the building, or reveal news, business and sport highlights. However, this lift displays pictures of, wait for it, mountains!
Why mountains? I have no idea. The first couple of times you see them you think "wow" or "this is cool" by the fifth time you are thinking "this is weird". Having caught the lifts in this office block for 11 months I can tell you I am now impervious to the pictures. The other strange thing is that the floors that the lift is going to are displayed on a thin strip next to where the doors open. Quite often new visitors have trouble working out which floor is which because of this.
One side issue that has arisen from this is that when I visit the other office (aka the Mothership), I sometimes forget to press the floor number. So rather than going to level 23 I end up at level 39! After 5 minutes of travelling up and down the floors I eventually get off at my correct destination. Albeit late for a meeting!
So if you are in Sydney take care when catching a lift, especially if it's in a small office block close to the Harbour Bridge!
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