I was on the elevator on my way to a meeting on the 8th floor. The elevator stopped on the 7th floor and I moved to allow a student to get out of the elevator. My phone was resting on a stack of papers I had in my hand (I had no pockets today and my keys were in my other hand). My phone slid off of the papers and headed straight for the floor. I reached for it, expecting it to bounce out of the elevator and into the lobby area for the floor. Instead, my phone bounced twice and then slid right into the gap between the elevator and the floor. I heard a couple of clanks and then nothing else.
I asked the ladies in Admin what to do and they said they would call facilities, since they were the ones who had helped people get keys out of the elevator shaft (so obviously this is not an isolated incident and items find their way into that space quite often). I went to my meeting expecting to hear that my phone had been found by the time I got done. 1.5 hours later, I check in with the ladies and they inform me that facilities has said they no longer provide this service. In other words, they weren't going to get my phone for me. I called facilities myself and was told that they couldn't help me because the men who worked there did not have access to the "pit" area. They then suggested I speak to the supervisor of those men to see if he could help me. I called and got no answer, so I left a voice mail. And I waited. And waited. And nothing. So I asked the security guard what he would suggest I do, and he said that calling facilities was what they always did. He suggested I call the campus police.
I give campus police a call and they inform me that it is facilities that used to do this, but that they no longer provide this service because it is a liability. They had apparently not retrieved the keys of a young woman just a few days earlier. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!! They actually think this response is okay? I e-mailed the same person I had called so that he would understand that this issue was serious. I basically told him that this level of service or lack thereof was not acceptable for any member of the FIU community, whether they were faculty like me, or students. Now I wait to see what his response is (it will have to be tomorrow). If he still refuses to help me, I'm taking this to so many people they won't even know what hit them. If I have to call the president's office I will. There is no way that not helping me when something like this happens can be acceptable at FIU. If they truly think it is acceptable, then I now have another reason to not want to continue working at this place. The lack of respect and care they have shown to me (and obviously to others with this new rule) needs to be brought to the forefront. Everyone will hear about it, regardless of whether I get my phone back.
As for my phone - I hope it is happy now. It's likely dead and in 7 pieces, but I want all 7 of those pieces back!
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