It was night. Our intrepid office worker had just finished yet another gruelling day at work, reading memos, studying Gantt charts, putting together Powerpoint slides for the big management meeting that is happening the next day. He rubs his eyes, glazed over from staring non-stop at the twenty-four-inch display that sits at the corner of his five-by-five cubicle, one of two hundred that was located on the same floor. About him, one hundred and ninety-nine others were also doing the same as he was, and when the floor clock chimed in at eight o'clock, one could almost hear a collective sigh of relief that the work day has finally, undoubtedly, ended. The official time for the end of the work day was, of course, at five o'clock, but one would be insane to leave at that time on the dot.
Rumour has it that the last time someone actually tried to exercise her rights to leave on time, she never came back, not even to pick up her stuff. The flimsy cabinets and drawers were opened up by maintenance the next day, and everything that was in it was unceremoniously dumped into one of three copier paper boxes. Someone who was there claimed that there were distinct sounds of broken ceramic among the thuds, but since no one could really remember who that someone was, everyone thought it apocryphal at best, though no one had doubts about the plausibility of what was claimed to have transpired.
Our intrepid office worker stood up, and hurriedly packed his things into the satchel that he brought each day to the office without fail. The computer screen was locked and switched off, and he yanked the imperceptible thumb drive next to it and shoved it quickly into his shirt pocket. There were one or two more slides that he needed to add, but would do so from the comfort of his home. Around him were the shuffling of one hundred ninety-nine other faceless office workers. There was only a small window of thirty minutes for them to clear out of the office before the automated doors locked up, thus stranding the unlucky souls that didn't make it out.
Another rumour had floated that someone was once stuck in between floors on the staircase when that happened. When the next day began, he was not to be found at his desk. It was only later that evening when they were filing out of the office that someone found his body lying at a landing of the stairwell. Everyone said it was because of a lack of oxygen since the staircase was not ventilated much, if at all. And since there were strong doors on the stairs between floors, they further limited whatever air there was to be had. The doors were usually open, but when the time was up, they closed and locked up, just like all the other doors. Again, no one really knew the person who found that poor soul, but since no one really knows anyone, there was no loss. Except for that dead guy.
The sound of two hundred office workers stampeding the elevator lobby was a sight to behold. The office space was on the twentieth floor of the building, and thankfully for everyone who was there, they were on the top floor and were the only ones who were still in the office at that time. All the other companies on all the other floors have left a long time ago. Their unfortunate luck came from the fact that each elevator car that came up could easily be filled to the brim with their kind and be brought straight to the ground floor without having to stop at any point.
Of course, there were only three elevators, each with a capacity of roughly eight people. This meant that on a good day, a total of eight waves could make it from the top floor down to the first. But most of the time, it took more than that---elevator cars were not fully filled because of bags being in the way, or the more likely scenario where one of the elevator cars was ``under maintenance'' and therefore unavailable. So a sizeable number of workers would try their luck on the stairs, especially when there is only fifteen minutes left on the clock.
Even though the office was on the twentieth storey, in actual fact, they were actually nearer twenty four storeys up. Four of the floors were void floors containing massive amounts of concrete that was used to support the building. Someone said that it had to do with the ``spinal'' architecture of the building it self, where a central over-sized high-compressive strength ``spine'' acted as the primary (and only) pillar, with the floors extending out like leaves or flower petals. To prevent the building from canting, four floors were built to be ultra rigid to provide additional support for the exterior skin of the building. Each floor was around three and a half metres in height, which meant that one had to walk through three rotations worth of stairs just to climb one floor. Multiplying that out meant that those who tried their luck with the stairs had to contend with spiralling themselves seventy-two full rotations without stopping before reaching the ground floor.
Thankfully though, our intrepid office worker did not have to resort to such insanity. He managed to squeeze on board the first elevator car, and within five minutes was happily out of the building and heading home, only to return the next day for yet another dose of this.
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