Yesterday we were able to move all our furniture from our apartment on the fourth floor to an apartment in Makeevka, not far from Good Shepherd, where the Prytups are going to live. It was a full day that turned out to be a bit more than I had personally bargained for.
Of course our building doesn't have an elevator, and I won't complain about that. Seven flights of stairs is not too difficult when there are six kids who are just starting work for the day and are also looking to show each other how tough they are and how fast they can move things out the front door. The trouble came when we arrived at the other apartment building, or shortly thereafter. These coworkers will live on the eighth floor of a 9-storey building. All such buildings were built standard with elevators, small but functional.
We took up the first three loads via elevator and all was going well. Andre arrived at the first floor, the door opened and the light went out in the elevator-car. Fortunately the door remained open (for the rest of the afternoon) so he could get out and the lights in the corridor were also still on. We began to take the bigger items (that wouldn't have fit in the elevator anyway) up the stairs, while one of the locals went to call someone and "see if he could get it turned on again."
This is where the story gets strange (at least in my opinion). Apparently there is an "operator" for each block of elevators, whose job it is to monitor the electric meters and shut off the elevators if they are getting used "too much." Fortunate for whoever pays the electric bill, this person was on his/her game yesterday and shut it down just in time. I was also told that it was also possible that someone from the building called the operator to "inform" on us. Why someone would do this, I don't know. And why the operator would shut it off, also a mystery. I guess that if this is the person's job and he/she has the power then he/she is more than happy to use it every once in a while.
We were told that the operator would turn the elevator back on shortly and most people wanted to wait it out. I am not sure what sort of past experiences those who preferred to wait have had, but apparently their understanding of the word "shortly" is not the same as the meaning that I have come to these past years here.
A couple of us continued the carrying and I also began to investigate this idea of an "elevator operator." One of the guys there had moved into his apartment 25 years ago and told me that these elevators were not "cargo elevators" (like the ones that were standard in 16-floor apartments) and therefore were not to be used "so often." We never even got close to the 325 kg. maximum, but apparently it is more a problem of the elevator being forced to repeatedly do what it was made to do or something. Anyway, way back when, when this guy was moving he had tracked down the operator and given her a little money to keep the elevator on. I wished he knew where to find the operator yesterday and "grease his/her palm."
We finished our 20 or so trips up the seemingly endless number of flights of stairs and as we left I checked--the elevator door was still open with the light off. For all I know it's still that way today; at least I can "feel the burn" in my arms, back and legs.
Dave
