A couple of times I have been caught off guard by a phone ringing somewhere near my office. Undefined noises are always unsettling, especially in buildings emptied for the night or the weekend. It turned out to be the emergency telephone in the elevator. The question that remains is: who is on the other side of the line? Is someone actually calling this particular elevator? Is someone squatting in the basement and using the elevator phone to stay in touch with the outside world? Has somebody been calling the wrong number over and over again? Has the phone number of the elevator accidentally been assigned again to someone else and every time this person is being called the elevator phone rings as well? Maybe next time it rings I’ll pick up the phone. Or maybe not, to avoid having to explain the situation to someone working at a call centre using computer generated digits.
