I live on the third floor and shamelessly use the elevator
Breaking the ‘elevator stigma’
Walk up to the elevators. Pause. Glance around. Is anyone around you? No? Thank goodness, you can step into that elevator without any shame.
There are two sides to every story.
If you live, or have lived, on floors two or three in any of the towers, you know what it feels like to walk into the elevator and be glared at to the point where your peers’ eyes pierce your soul.
Take that dissatisfied look off your face
If you live on any other floor in the towers, you know what it’s like to have the elevator stopped constantly, to be late to class because of the elevator delay, and to have the elevator doors open on the lower floors and consistently have no student there to enter the elevator.
The elevator poses two contrasting ideas about who should use the elevator and when they should use it. The majority being, students on floors two and three shouldn’t use the elevator–probably ever.
Don’t judge me
From someone who lives on the third floor, I take a very biased stance on the topic. Why should I be chastised for using the elevator?
When students stare, whisper or simply ‘give me bad vibes,’ I can’t help but think: “I pay just as much as you to go here or I bet you use the elevator in the COMM school.”
Don’t get me wrong, I understand it can be annoying for other students when the lower floors press the buttons. It slows the whole process down. But the few times I use the elevator and the few times most people use the elevator, we almost always have a valid excuse. Laundry, rain, rancid smell and exhaustion are definitely the top reasons I’m using the elevator from the third floor.
Molly Alvino begins her attempt to cross the treacherous puddle at the end of the stairwell
Carrying loads of laundry up and down the stairs is extremely difficult. When it rains, puddles form at the bottom, sometimes inches deep. Not to mention, the staircase smells like a combination of weed, sweat and mildew. Yum.
And we all have days where we have had big tests, hard workouts and emotional breakdowns (those aren’t exclusive to people on floor four and up). Cut a ‘Cane a break and let us take the elevator on these days, even though I know you judge me extra hard when I am on the elevator in workout clothes.
Stretch. You can do this…even in flip flops
The stories of my floormates, and peers on other lower floors are similar, we don’t feel loved when we enter the elevator.
“A big group of guys went into the elevator before us and we pressed three. They gave a sigh of relief, they were on floor two,” said Emily Wheeler, Ecosystem Science and Policy major.
“A floormate’s injury was my excuse for awhile. We would tell people in the elevator he was run over by a car and broke his knee so he needed to take the elevator,” said Kyle Gordon, Public Relations major.
“I try to stand in the front and the side where the buttons are, that way I can leave easy, not see people staring, and I can look like I’m not the person who pressed the button,” Molly Alvino, undergraduate Marine Science and Biology student, said.
“One time I was getting on the elevator and the guy next to me came on with a hoverboard, glared at me and said, ‘Really, floor three?'” Jordan Czerwiec, Marine Science major.
I don’t know where you stand, but remember, the students on floors two and three can feel your disdain in the elevator.
It’s either stairs or stares.