Or how about a James Bond type space-trolley or bunjee cord?
I was thinking about a repelling rope & harness to keep under your desk - trouble is to repel you need the bottom end free - if someone else below you jumps on your rope you will be stuck (unable to lower yourself) until it frees itself again.
Maybe there are some devices that will allow this but I don’t know of any.
I just came straight from Wildest Bill’s ‘Animal cruelty’ thread and was already giggling when I saw this. No offense, really, but I just spewed Diet Pepsi all over my monitor…
…BwhahaahaaHAAHAAAAAA…
Sorry.
Actually, I have a 100 foot 250 pound test line that I take with me on business trips. You can get them in backpack stores. Real tiny and lightweight. Won’t help on the 100th floor, but good to go for most hotels.
I’m sorry, I **can’t ** quit laughing. But I get that way.
The Thousand Foot Repel.
Look out belooooowww…
peace 
There is a sudden opportinuty for all sorts of “get out of tall buildings fast” gadgets now. Some enterprising individual or company will surely patent some kind of device, such as:
A small (about the size of a loaf of bread) device simliar to a coil tape measure. It would need to have at least 1000 ft of a steel cable that would support at least a 200 lb person (we could use the same kind of wire that David Copperfield uses!). The chassis of the device would need to have very secure grips so you can hang on for dear life. The feed mechanism would allow a maximum descent speed of two stories per second, so you would be able to drop 20 stories every ten seconds.
By my calculations, a person on the 110 floor would reach the ground in less than 1 minute.
I’m off to the patent office!
I’ll wave to you as I repel by…
There is the Twistscraper. One design feature – “Rescueing (sic) people in case of a fire is simplified and accelerated due to the existence of inclined and overhanging facades.”
These images on TV from the WTC attack - people dropping out of windows - were among the most horrifying that I have ever seen. I would appreciate it if people didn’t make light of this here. - Jill