My workboy told a funny story. He said that the other night, he was riding the elevator and heard voices. It turns out that an automated telemarketer had somehow connected to the elevators internal emergency phone, and was trying to sell a new low interest loan to it. Pretty funny.

The more I thought about it, the more it didn't make sense. If it was an incoming call, how was it answered? Or was the phone off the hook all the time? But if that was the case, wouldn't they get a busy signal? It didn't add up, so I decided to investigate. I went into one of our elevators, and (a little nervously) opened the door to the little cupboard that houses the emergency call box. Inside was a box with a speaker and a single Call button. On the reverse side of the door were some instructions that basically said "Push the call button to connect to Emergency Services, blah blah blah".

But below that, in handwriting, was a local phone number. So I made a note of it and returned to my desk.

I called the phone number, fully prepared to say "Whoops! Wrong number, sorry!". I dialed, and the phone rang. Then rang a few more times. Just as I was about to hang up, I got a rapid succession of alternating tones, and then a connected semi-silence, as if I was talking to a speakerphone with no one in the room. I could hear faint background noise, and realized that I was, indeed, connected to the elevator.

Pretty cool!