The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. I'm at a coworking space in Girona. It's my first day.

It's a big room filled with desks. At each desk sits a young person. No old people, only young people. Not a single person under the age of thirty. Except me. I'm 35.

I expected nerds but these are not nerdy people. No thick glasses. No bow tie that spins when you pull a string. No gawky teeth. They're just average young people wearing jumpers and blouses.

A Russian woman shows me to a desk. Everyone has a computer. Everyone has a screen. Everyone's in silence.

Some people have several screens. There's a guy with two big screens hooked up to an Apple Mac. He has his headphones in and he's fully focused. Doing what, I don't know.

In fact, what are all these people doing?

What can you do with a mouse and a keyboard? I can understand what a farmer does. I can understand what a postman does. But what do these people do? I don't know.

The room is in silence, except for the constant clack clack clack of typing, the clicks of mice, and the hum of a fan. Occasionally someone talks on a phone call or video call. Words I catch are "hashtags" and "ChatGPT".

I start writing about them on my laptop.

 

At lunchtime, I get to find out what people do. I'm invited to a restaurant.

There's an Irish guy who maintains websites or something. He looks like Mark Zuckerberg. I tell him this and he laughs.

There's a French guy who says he fixes the computer systems of insurance companies. "It's all a big mess." He says in his part-time he's working on a method of automating ChatGPT for unlimited SEO content for his websites.

The Russian woman has a blog and an Instagram account where she gives people ideas of things to do in Girona. Her next big plan is to launch a newsletter.

Everyone has all these get-rich ideas but everyone is poor, I notice.

 

When I come back to the office I discover it's impossible to do any work after lunch. You're too relaxed. All you want to do after lunch is doss off until home time comes. How does anyone get any work done in these places?

At 5 pm, my laptop dies and I decide it's time to go home. I pack my bag. I leave without saying goodbye to anyone. Fuck 'em. Everyone is absorbed in their computers anyway.

I push the button for the lift. The lift doors open. I enter the lift. The lift doors close. I push the button for the ground floor.

Nothing happens.

I press the button for the ground floor again.

Nothing happens.

I push the button that opens the doors.

Nothing happens. The doors stay closed.

I'm trapped in the lift.

No need to panic. Things like this happen all the time. I'm sure there's a way out.

I try prising the doors open with my fingers, but it's no use. I can't get a grip on them.

I push the button for floor 2. Nothing. The button for floor 1. Nothing. The button for the ground floor, the button for the basement. Nothing.

I'm trapped in a steel box.

I hear footsteps outside. I think about banging on the door and shouting "LET ME OUT!" but I know the entire office will gather around and laugh at me when the doors open. I stay quiet.

The footsteps are getting quieter. Whoever it is, they're taking the stairs instead.

There's an alarm button. I decide not to press this button yet. Someone else will be along soon. Someone else will want to use the lift. And when they do, they'll let me out.

So I wait. Someone will come along.

Five minutes pass and no one comes. I decide to wait another five minutes. If no one comes then I'll use the alarm button.

I wait.

I check my phone. Only two minutes have passed.

I wait until five minutes have passed. I press the alarm button. A loud alarm sounds: WOOooo WOOooo WOOooo. It's loud, like a fire alarm.

I wait for someone to come. No one comes. I press the alarm button again, longer this time: WOOooo WOOooo WOOooo WOOooo WOOooo WOOooo. Still no one comes. I can picture all those hipsters in the office, sitting there staring at their screens as the lift alarm goes off again and again. I can picture them all ignoring the alarm.

There's a little button marked AIPHONE. I press this button. A robotic voice says "YOU ARE BEING CONNECTED TO A SERVICE AGENT." Then I'm on hold. Lift music is playing. It's one of God's ironies.

Then a man says, "Hello?"

"Hello. I'm trapped in a lift and I can't get out."

"You're trapped in a lift?"

"Yes."

"Have you tried the buttons?"

"Yes. I have tried the buttons."

He takes my phone number. Then the intercom goes silent. What's happened? Has he sent someone out to help me?

I press the alarm button again: WOOooo WOOooo WOOooo. I try using the alarm button to send Morse code: three long bursts, three short bursts, and three long bursts. SOS. Still no one comes. For Christ's sake, one of these smart geeks in the office should understand Morse code, surely?

I need to take a piss. I have an empty plastic bottle with me but it's only a small bottle. It's not enough to hold my piss. My piss would overflow the bottle. Then not only would I be trapped in a lift but also I'd be trapped with a puddle of my own piss.

I decide not to take a piss.

Some people would panic in this situation. Some people would have a panic attack. Not me. But I can feel my heart beating faster: thadum-thadum-thadum-thadum. I sing Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" to calm myself. "Hey I just met you and this is crazy. Here's my number, so call me baby." My heart rate back goes down.

I hear someone walking past outside. The shush shush of their shoes slapping on the floor. I bang on the lift door. "HELLO?" I shout. I bang on the doors some more. "HELLO?"

The doors open. A woman is standing there. She looks at me as if I'm weird.

"Thank God, I've been trapped in that lift for fifteen minutes."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I was pressing the alarm button. Didn't you hear me?"

"Oh that? We all heard that. We all just thought it was the construction workers. There's work going on in the building."

"Well the lift didn't work. The buttons didn't do anything."

"It's because you need an app to use the lift."

"You need an app to use the lift?"

She laughs. I laugh too because I'm free now.

"Yeah, you have to go to reception," she says. "They'll tell you about the app."

Fucking app? Fucking app for a lift?

"Yeah well, it's my first day."

I take the stairs down. When I get to the ground floor, I think about going to the toilet. But my urge to piss has gone now. So I just go home instead.

When I get home, I take the stairs up to my apartment, not the lift. Fuck lifts.

As I open my front door, my phone rings. I answer it: "Hello?".

"Hi, is this Paul?"

The voice sounds like the Russian woman from the coworking place earlier.

"Yeah," I say.

"I heard you got trapped in a lift?" she says.

"Oh yeah, that. Don’t worry about it. I got out."

"Oh. Well, it’s just that the lift repair company say you called for help? And they've sent a guy round. He's here now. He's demanding a €120 emergency callout charge."

"Oh." I say. I say nothing else. I just leave the awkward silence hanging there for several moments.

Eventually she says, "Well, of course, it shouldn’t be you who pays it, as it wasn’t your fault. Don’t worry, I'm sure the coworking space will sort something out with the lift repair company."

"Oh, that’s good." I say. "Well, bye, then." I hang up the phone.