oh you think that's bad... listen to this one...

Working in the mall is a weird twilight zone experience sometimes. The hours are odd, you have to work when the mall is closed for most of the noisy construction. You use the cargo doors, delivery entrances, and passageways behind the scenes that others never see. When you come off your night shift, dusty and dirty, you are leaving the mall just as the well-dressed bored housewives are starting to arrive.
Given the choice, I’d never step foot in a mall again.

On this particular project we were demolishing a Disney store and turning it into an Apple store. As part of the demo we needed to sawcut the concrete floors. Based on the blueprints provided by Murray the Mall Manager, we were safe to cut. Then came a fireworks display of sparks and a flying saw and a startled employee then complete darkness and silence.

We had cut through an enormous electrical conduit providing power to several other stores and the nearby escalator – and it had NOT been shown on the blueprints for the site. Thank God no one had been electrocuted or hurt. We were forced to shut down for the night.

Over the next few days, Murray the Mousy Mall Manager had the electrical repairs made, called the escalator company to re-start their escalator, got the other businesses back on the grid and we finally went back to work. Every day of delay in construction meant a day later opening the store and I knew our client would not tolerate any delay, no excuses. We’d have to find a way to make up for the lost time.

It became obvious that the escalator had been damaged, it never worked a full day after the electrical fiasco. After three days, it stopped working altogether. Because it was close to our store, we saw the constant round of repairmen coming by but didn’t give it much thought. Our store was on the main floor, so we never used it.

Shortly thereafter I got a call and letter from Murray the Misguided Mall Manager telling me how much the new escalator was going to cost. Interesting, sure but what did I care? Oh… he thought WE should pay for it! He explained that our construction dust had caused the mechanism to jam. And here I must tell you that out store had been surrounded in a soundproof, snoop-proof, dustproof barrier, we were airtight and practically shrink wrapped. It would have been a miracle of biblical proportions if our construction dust had gotten out into the mall, nevermind into an escalator mechanism.
Murray the Malicious Mall Manager set up a meeting between myself and the escalator company to negotiate the cost of the new machine.
We sat down at a conference table, me alone with my inadequate notebook and photos. The escalator company had every available service person at the table. They might have taken some of those guys out of retirement! I admit it was more than a little intimidating.

Since I had no knowledge of escalators, I just listened. Murray the Meek Mall Manager never bothered to call the meeting to order, didn’t have an agenda, it became a free for all. The escalator company employees started trading War Stories. “We had a breakdown in a such-and-such a city and you won’t believe what we found… a quarter all bent up in the gears.” “That’s nothing,” someone else jumped in, “we had the heel off a woman’s shoe jamming ours.” Laughs all around. The escalator stories escalated. Somebody else had gotten a stroller wheel out of the mechanism. Somebody tried to top that story and on and on they went. Thank goodness for the drive to always out-do the last guy.

I acted amused and impressed, so they kept going. What a strange meeting. After about half an hour of stories, I closed my notebook, stood up and looked around the table at the guys. I thanked them for inviting me. “Apparently it takes a lot more than sheetrock dust to jam an escalator. And we won’t be contributing to the repair.”
I turned and walked out of the room and out of the mall and never heard another word about it.