Entire company locked out of office for days because of rogue umbrella
An unfortunately placed umbrella inflicted some serious Monday morning blues on a group of American office workers.
Employees at a company based in WeWork offices in Washington DC were thwarted when they tried to turn up to work this week but found the glass door well and truly jammed shut.
One look on the floor inside the office showed the culprit to be a rogue umbrella that had fallen on the ground at the most awkward spot possible.
Neeraj K Agrawal posted a picture of the predicament – which had reportedly lasted for two days at the time – on Twitter, adding, “No one can figure it out.”
The tweet quickly went viral, with people offering their own, helpful and unhelpful, solutions to get into the room.
My friend’s entire company is locked out of their WeWork office because an umbrella fell, jamming the door.
No one can figure it out. It’s been like this for 2 days. pic.twitter.com/ggaUkgYRFR— Neeraj K. Agrawal (@NeerajKA) September 17, 2019
“Wire hanger from the dry cleaners, slip into crack, push umbrella,” one man tweeted.
Another suggested filling the office with water making the umbrella float away.
“I’d just quit,” another joked.
Mr Agrawal said despite the numerous tweets advising for the glass to be smashed, employees were working somewhere else.
“There’s nothing important in there,” he tweeted.
“It’s 2019. Computers are portable now. Work just moved to a different office.”
Employee Matthew Gault told Vice it was his umbrella which was blocking the door after leaving the office on Friday without it. He added four people work in the office.
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Mr Gault said he and his co-workers tried coathangers and “wedging it” but nothing worked describing the operation to remove the umbrella as a “small scale version of the Sword in the Stone”.
He returned on Tuesday with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers but those didn’t work either.
“My theory is that the maintenance crew, who came in on Friday evening… Something happened that caused the umbrella to fall in such a way that could never be replicated in 1,000 years,” Mr Gault told Vice.
Mr Agrawal later added that the umbrella was eventually removed by an engineer.
“Rather than breaking the glass, an engineer drilled a hole in the ceiling and lifted the umbrella out of the way using wire,” he tweeted.
Mr Gault said a hole remains in the ceiling though about the size of a gherkin.
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