Dear Fifth Floor,
Alone. That’s how we arrive when the elevator door opens.
Our first taste of technological isolation. A person replaced with a button. And now we’re left alone – with no one to talk to, no one to ask questions of, no one to give us the skinny, no one to make sure we arrive at our destination safely. We’re on a machine…in a machine.
We miss you, elevator operator. We miss having the comfort of a real person running the machine we were in. Your presence gave us more than just a ride – it gave us a sense of safety and care. Community was built into the process of going floor to floor. Now? We do it alone.
But it won’t be long before we’re reunited, dear elevator operator. The button that replaced you has begun to replace us all. The button – technology – learned not just to move an elevator up and down, but to do everything else we went to work to do. Everything. For you, it took the shape of a button that lit up. For us, it’s taken the shape of an invisible AI that talks.
There’s an old saying: “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”
And sure, we don’t need an elevator operator to get us to the right floor anymore. We can press the button ourselves. But what we didn’t know we had was someone to welcome us. Someone to comfort us. Someone to remind us that we’re still human – and we’re here for one another.
That’s what the elevator operator was: a human presence reminding us that even when we’re in a machine, an elevator, or an office building – we’re still human. And we’re still here for each other.
Maybe as we bump into each other less at work – in the office building – or in the store – we try a little harder to connect with each other when we aren’t at work. Because we may not need humans to push our elevator buttons for us, but we still need humans to push our soul buttons…if they no longer come to us, let’s find an elevator and go to them.
Rest in peace, Elevator Operator. We’ll see you again soon.
In loving memory,
~ The Radical Left
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Do you remember the last time you had a human touch in the elevator? Share your story in the comments, and let’s keep the humanity alive.