office space

I work on the sixth floor.
It's the top floor of the building.
One elevator never works and the other one is slow.
But I don't want to tell you about the elevators. I want to tell you about the fifth floor. Actually, I want to discuss the people who work on the fifth floor.
I don't know what they do for a living on the fifth floor...or, more accurately, I know what company is on the fifth floor and I can sort of figure out what kind of business it is, on the fifth floor (get your mind out of the gutter - it's a regular kind of company).
What I mean to tell you is: whatever the hell it is that they are doing on the fifth floor must be an enormous amount of fun.
Any time I am on the elevator with people from the fifth floor they are cracking themselves up.
It could be first thing in the morning, they could be riding up with their newspapers and coffee and one of them will be telling another one some hysterically funny story.
Going home in the evening, the employees of the fifth floor saunter to the elevator with smiles on their faces and a spring in their step.
At lunchtime they are chipper and sharing jokes.
They get on the elevator laughing and get off the elevator smacking each other on the back.
I am continually impressed with their jovial attitude.
And, if that weren't enough, last week I attended a meeting on the other end of the sixth floor.
I sat in a small quiet office at the furthest end of the building and, while discussing the merits of the internet, I felt my chair vibrating, just slightly, and suddenly noticed muffled yet distinct funky music coming from below me.
I asked the people in the room with me about the muffled strains of Evelyn Champagne King emanating from the floor - I asked why they would be playing music so loud just below us and they only said that, from time to time, they have called the building management and complained.
I suppose, if I worked at that end of the building, having issues with noise, that I too might call downstairs and ask them to turn down the volume.
But, as I work on the east side of the building, and as it is deathly silent most of the time, I find myself sometimes wishing that I worked on the fifth floor.