Overheard a building manager say something about 'the lift just needs a reboot' and I had to bite my tongue

I was working on an old Otis unit in a 12 story office building over in Oakland last Tuesday, and this building manager comes up while I'm checking the controller. He says real casual like, 'you know, I think the lift just needs a reboot, my IT guy does that with our server all the time.' I just kind of nodded and smiled, but inside I was cracking up. Like yeah sure, let me just hit ctrl-alt-delete on a 1979 MCS 220 and see if the car comes back to life. I ended up finding a busted door lock contact on the 8th floor that was causing the intermittent shutdowns, which is way more common than people think. Has anyone else had a customer or building staff try to give you dumb IT-style advice for elevator troubleshooting?

2 comments

2 Comments

blake_kelly195h ago

Yeah the 'just reboot it' advice kills me every time. I ended up in a similar spot a few years back with an old Dover traction unit, building super kept saying to cycle the main breaker like it's a modem. I finally just pulled up the controller manual on my phone, pointed to the wiring diagram for the safety circuit, and said 'there's no power button on this thing, Bob.' Turned out a microswitch on the governor was sticking from old grease. I had to explain that 'restart' on a 1980s elevator means cleaning contacts and checking voltages, not unplugging it for ten seconds. People just don't get how analog these machines are compared to the digital stuff they're used to.

danielowens4h ago

That governor microswitch - was it a specific model that's known for that, or just regular 80s grease gumming things up?