Part of my job as a doorman is to observe the goings on in the building that show up on my multi-screen monitor. This is what I get paid for, but at times it feels a little creepy watching people do things they think they can do because they don’t think anyone is watching, or maybe they just don’t care.

The most interesting stuff happens on the elevator camera, of course.

Some people are completely aware, like the teenagers and kids who make faces at me, they know I am looking. One time a teenaged girl in the building got on with a friend of hers, and pointed to the camera. That prompted her friend to look up at the camera and pull her top down to expose her breasts. I think I actually jumped back an inch in surprise. She was grinning up at me as she pushed her breasts up a notch.

I once saw a guy, one of the tenants, grab his teenaged son by the throat with both hands and forcibly push him off the elevator up on their floor. I wonder what the kid said that prompted such an extreme reaction. The guy was some kind of Israeli diplomat, it was rumored he was a Mossad agent, so I felt for the kid. In reference to the said kid, another tenant, a therapist; said; “Who’s that kid? He looks depressed.”

On a lighter note, I’ve made a lot of interesting observations looking at that elevator monitor.

There is a big mirror on the elevator, ostensibly so you can check your appearance before venturing out into the world.

Men who are alone always carefully examine their hairlines, checking to see how much is left. A lot of them also look at their teeth; there was one guy who looked at his teeth for three trips up and down once. Every time he went up and the door opened and closed, he still wasn’t done with his dental examination; I’d call the elevator back down to one, and he’d press his floor and do it all over again. I’ll never know what was so interesting about his teeth.

Women play with their hair a lot. One girl spent the whole ride up to the 17^th floor running her fingers through her hair before as a parting gesture, looked over her shoulder to look at her ass just before getting off.

This is what women alone do mostly, is look at their asses. They look over their shoulders and pose, shifting from one foot to the other to see their better side.

I’ve seen both men and women pull their shirts up to look at their stomachs, not always a pleasant sight.

I’ve seen people making out, pretty common, once I saw a kid try to plant a kiss on a girl and get pushed away by a hand to the face. I haven’t seen any smacks yet.

I’ve seen women hike up their skirts and adjust their pantyhose (not a lot to see from a camera on the roof of the elevator) and I saw a man’s pants just fall down once. He caught them at mid thigh.

Some people dance on the elevator.

Some people sing, I can tell they are singing because of the way they move their heads and bodies as their mouths move.

Yes, some people talk to the mirror. My first super, a real petit tyrant of a man would gesticulate wildly as he talked to himself on the elevator, but at least he didn’t look into the mirror or up at the camera while doing so. Sometimes I thought he might break apart before he got to the floor he was going to.

I’ve seen dogs piss on the floor, and even a couple of humans do it as well.

Which brings me to the wasted people.

One night a guy came in really, really, wasted, he had a big bag of hockey sticks slung diagonally across his back. When the elevator door opened, he lurched on, only to have the sticks catch on the doorframe and fling him off the elevator into the wall opposite. One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, considering he did it once more before he figured out he had to turn sideways to get on with the sticks across his back.

I had to help one guy onto the elevator one New Year’s eve, it was actually New Year’s day by that time, and the next day he asked if I’d seen him come in.

“Did you see me come in last night?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Was I wasted?”

“Yes, you were.”

I always tell it like it is.