Miscellaneous

This'll Teach You to Stop Smoking

This is a crazy goddamn story: Nicholas White, a former production manager at Business Week, stepped out on a Friday night at 11:00 for a cigarette break. On his way back up to his office, he popped into an elevator, and that elevator didn't open again for 41 Hours! They just forgot about him. After he was finally released from the elevator, an angry Nicholas refused to return to work and, eventually, filed a lawsuit against the building owners for $25 million. The suit dragged on for years, until he eventually settled for something less than six figures. He lost his job. His colleagues. His apartment. And is still unemployed.

You can watch the entire 41 hours in a time lapse video here, and it's the sort of thing -- in the 90 seconds or so it takes to watch it -- that will make you feel incredibly claustrophobic, and ready to kill. $25 million may sound excessive, but man: That sort of pain and suffering deserves at least 7 figures.

Full post as published by Quiz Law on April 16, 2008 (boomark / email).