An elevator you can bribe

A paid alternative to the call button

Mr. Stumpton, welcome to your new job. We hope you’ll have a wonderful first day, we are so happy to have you join the team. You are so lucky on your first day.

It’s fine to ask, your coworkers asked too,

The tokens are for the elevators. They tend to get crowded, the wait times tend to get long, so the management decided to take action and acquired bribable elevators. Yes, Mr. Stumpton, you can bribe the elevators.

You see, elevator call button design has stayed the same for almost two centuries, and remained ineffective. Our management did something about that, made a series of executive decisions, and ultimately signed off with the board.

Now there’s a coin slot next to the call button. The elevator designers call it the call slot. When you insert a token into the call slot, the elevator will prefer you. That is, if you are the highest bidder.

Your coworkers have used the system the last six months and are happy about it. They are asking for more tokens.

From next quarter, tokens will be handed out to new employees only. After the initial coin offering, the few tokens they do have today will be worth many times more anyway. You can still buy tokens out of your own team’s budget. Make sure you get your manager’s approval. Use company money as if it’s your own.

The elevator’s electronic brain keeps a balance sheet. Whoever has a current order in at the highest price — the most tokens — will get their order fulfilled first. Mr. Stumpton, that means you’ll get the elevator before anyone else.

If you insert a coin into the call slot for “going up”, the closest elevator car will turn around and go back to you. However, if someone bribes twice the amount on the second floor, the elevator will go there, and you have lost your money.

The engineers are working on this, stay tuned.

Proceeds from tokens are for the management to spend. We believe we will use some of the money for elevator maintenance and charity. And also salaries.