Observed

One problem with having one’s office on the third floor (US: fourth floor) of a multi-story walk-up building is that it provides a very powerful disincentive to do things that would require a round trip to the ground floor.

6 thoughts on “Observed

  1. Exercise!!! Also, you can slide down the bannister can’t you? So it’s really just walking up.

  2. Alas, the staircases don’t work for sliding (and even if they were suitable, I never got the knack of doing it, a practise complicated by my vertigo).
     
    But it is excellent exercise, and I’m a healthier man for it.

  3. What sorts of things require a round trip?

    How is a third floor a fourth floor in the UK?

  4. I didn’t remember you suffered from vertigo. I confess you may have acquired that from me. xx

  5. Mark, we have a reference library in the basement, which is especially useful to me in my current bookless state. That, or checking my office mail, or using the departmental scanner. Luckily for me, the coffee machine is on the same floor as I am! I have a window, so I get lots of fresh air any time I want, and the “male toilet” is only one floor down.
     
    Britain counts floors beginning from the ground floor – so it’s ground floor (main office and classroom), first floor (offices and Upper Seminar Room), second floor (more offices), and third floor (= fourth floor by US counting) on which my office perches under the eaves. Actually, it’s a lot like my first office at Seabury, but somewhat bigger.
     
    Mom, I have gotten increasingly sensitive to heights over the years. It may involve the same phenomenon as my getting more easily dizzy; I have a hard time looking at swing sets or merry-go-rounds. When a movie involves great heights, I have to look away, and yesterday when I wanted to photograph some lovely skylights at a colleague’s office, I was leaning backward away from the stairwell as I extended my arm out over the abyss. No decent photos resulted, but I must have amused anyone who saw me.

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