5 different times I have worked in buildings more than 50 stories tall. And every one, I worked on the third floor. Which with the standard construction of a two story lobby was the lowest possible work floor in each case.
About the elevators.
I cant believe 1 person said a 30 minute ride! To me 30 minutes in a tight room with strangers would be… odd. But I guess you would get used to it.
I’d be the whole time holding in my farts and hoping others do also.
You must get to know quite a few people if your shoved next to them every day.
About 16 years ago, I was working on the 33rd floor of one of the taller buildings in San Francisco, and on the 42nd floor of a slightly shorter building, also in SF.
Other than the view, there was nothing particularly memorable about either place. Decently designed elevator systems make a 42-floor ride go almost as fast as a 6-floor ride.
I worked on the 48th floor of a 52-story building for 2 years, the tallest building in New England, for more than 2 years. My window overlooked the finish line of the Boston Marathon and MIT. I saw a Diesel locomotive that had run past the end of its track and ran half way across the Southeast Expressway. The building swayed in a strong windstorm. I was appointed to be the floor fire warden for my office group. Don’t recall elevator travel time. I had watched the building being built from the window of a building across town. I later worked on the 21st floor of a 40-story tower for 2 years which overlooked the roof of the Old State House and also the site of the Boston Massacre. I had watched that building being built from the window of my building across the street.
I work across the street from the Sears Tower in Chicago. I’m on the 12th floor, I think there are about 28 floors or so. I don’t know the exact number since we have two sets of elevators, one for 1-14 and the other for 14 on up. There is an ok view onto Wacker, so I can at least see which food trucks are out there.
I’ve got a neighbor in my apartment building that works in the Sears tower. He confirms that the elevators are a pain.
I worked on the 68th floor of a building. The elevator ride wasn’t particularly onerous; there was one bank of elevators that served the 56th-68th floors only (plus the 7th floor, where the executive offices were).
The annual fire drill was always something to remember. Walking down 68 flights of stairs took about half an hour and you’d have wobbly legs the next day.
I currently work on the 12th floor of a 76 floor building, the tallest in Seattle. There is an express elevator to a 40th floor lobby that services the upper floors. We’re probably moving to the 35th floor in the same building later this year. That might not be an improvement: my current desk has a spectacular view of Mount Ranier and I’m told the new office faces a less interesting direction.
Interesting. Our fire drill only made everyone go down five floors. I did walk all the way down a few weeks ago when downtown lost power and we wanted to walk to a powered area for lunch.
For over 35 years my office would be or could go or did go from ground level to as much as 31,000 feet.
I have had the Presidents carved from the Black hills of SD in view from many angles, NYC, Chicago, Grand Canyon and most tourist sights & destinations of every state except Disney World from directly overhead and the The White House and places like that.
Flew right past the face of the Murry Building in OKC the day after the bombing taking pictures for the FBI.
IMO, I had the best offices in the world even if they were pretty small. I never got bored.
Fire drill day was kind of a farce because maybe 50% of the people on our floor would “conveniently” have a meeting scheduled on a low floor during the fire drill. What are the odds?
*What is the highest floor in the tallest building you have ever worked in? *
I’ve worked in a number of very tall buildings around Manhattan. Typically as high as the 30-40th floor. Although sometimes those floors are just top-floor meeting spaces (presumably because of the views they command). Some of them include:
1095 Avenue of the Americas
1633 Broadway (The Paramount Building)
180 Maiden Lane
3 Times Square
MetLife Building
Woolworth Building
probably a few others I can’t remember
Then tell me, what was it like?
It’s sort of like working in any office anywhere, but with better views. Sometimes they can feel a bit crowded though. I’ve found that shorter “office park” style buildings tend to have more floor space and more space for conference rooms, atriums and whatnot. Even in the more prestigious places I’ve worked, there’s a lot of “the Senior Partner isn’t here, we can use his office as a conference room”.
They can also be kind of sterile compared to the “Silicon Alley” style tech offices with their exposed brick and pipes in some converted soho factory space.
Were you so tall you were sometimes in the clouds?
Generally no. Clouds typically don’t get so low in New York that you feel like you’re looking out the window of an airplane. At best you just get fog. I’ve been buildings in San Fran where the clouds roll in below building level though.
What was the view like up there? Was there any particularly interesting sight you could see?
Depending on the location, the views can be quite nice. 180 Maiden Lane overlooks the Brooklyn Bridge and South Street Seaport and 1095 AoA overlooks Bryant Park in Midtown. I worked at the Woolworth building right after 9/11 so unfortunately my view was mostly a giant smoking crater. Usually you can see well into New Jersey and Brooklyn and out to Staten Island if there are no obstructions.
It is pretty cool watching the city moving underneath you. Well, the people and vehicles that is. The city itself mostly stays put.
Sometimes you have views of other offices. Mostly other people doing boring office shit. Sometimes you see something interesting.
- For example being able to see helicopters or airplanes flying below you or nearly at your level?*
Helicopters fly at that level, mostly out on the river. There’s a heliport near 180 Maiden Lane so you can see them landing. Aircraft from LGA, JFK and EWR tend to fly several thousand feet above the buildings.
Aircraft generally don’t fly anywhere near the buildings in Manhattan for obvious reasons.
How long did the elevator ride take to get up to your floor?
Depends, but typically not very long. Elevators in tall buildings are arranged in blocks of floors (1-10, 11-20, 21-30 and so on). It typically doesn’t take very long to get to even a high floor, but the deciding factor is whether you are towards the top or bottom of your block of floors.
Did the building ever move in high winds?
Slightly, but not so that you would normally notice.
And I have to ask, after 9/11 did you ever have concerns about safety like how would you get out of such a building in case of emergency?
Not really. With the exception of the MetLife and Woolworth building, most of the ones I’ve worked in are either not particularly noteworthy or are surrounded by other buildings.
One of the interesting things about New York is that there are so many buildings that would be the tallest building in whatever city you plopped them in. But in Manhattan, they just sort of disappear into the skyline.
I’ve worked in several high-rise buildings in the 20-30 story range in downtown Chicago; the highest floor on which I’ve ever actually had an office has been the 21st floor.
My current office is on the 15th floor of a building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, directly across the street from the Art Institute. We have spectacular views of the parks on the east side of Michigan Avenue, and of Lake Michigan.
In one of my earlier offices, we were across the street from a fairly well-known high-rise condo building, Marina City. One afternoon, we could see a couple in a condo directly across from my office window, having sex directly against their patio window. That was exciting. 
Never more than 45 seconds or so if it was a non-stop elevator; rarely more than 2-3 minutes, even if the elevator was stopping a lot.
What I didn’t see mentioned by other posters is that in some very tall buildings, like the Willis (Sears) Tower, you take two elevators to get to your floor. You take one elevator from ground level to a “sky lobby” (which runs only express from ground to that lobby), then a second elevator from the sky lobby to your floor.
Some buildings did, and you could feel the swaying. What was more impressive was seeing the water in the toilets in the restroom sloshing around.
I was in a meeting in a client’s office on the ~50th floor of the Sears Tower, a week and a half after 9/11. It was a little spooky, to be sure. But, other than that, it’s never been something I’ve really been too worried about.
Long ago (mid-80s) I worked in the Renaissance Center in Detroit (the glass cylinder that currently serves as GM headquarters). Due to the nature of my job I worked in several different areas, but I spent plenty of time working in the sky lounge on the top 72nd floor. I was working there during a fireworks show on the Detroit River one year, and it was trippy looking down on the exploding fireworks.
For a previous job, I worked on the roof of the John Hancock building one day. That was a little freaky especially since the equipment I was working on was located on top of the machinery on the roof and hung over the sides to a 30 foot drop to the roof. Also there were spiders.
For a number of years I worked on the 32 (I think) floor of the Smith Towerin Seattle. Spectacular views of Puget Sound. And the windows opened.
Sitting on the top floor of a 34 floor building.
Co-Worker: Why are the window blinds swaying?
Me: They’re not.
Co-Worker: Yes they are I can see them!.
Me: THEY are standing still. WE are swaying.
I’ve been to the top eight time on five different occasions; can’t tell you what the elevators up are like because I’ve never used them.
The stairwells are quite narrow the last dozen+ flights; not much of a view, either.
My company had 11-15 of 41 stories. A block away was converted from unused industrial to college housing. Floor-to-ceiling windows & no window coverings at first (Someone didn’t think they were that important on tenth floor.). The computer room guys who worked on Sat morning were quite impressed with the stamina of some random co-ed’s boyfriend!
I had been up to the observation deck of the pre-9/11 World Trade Center several times. Those elevators were fast! Your ears popped.
I worked on the 18th floor of an office building in NYC that had a view of the East River. Nothing all that exciting except for the occasional garbage barge. I will say the first time there were window-washers outside it startled the hell out of me - even though I knew they were to be working, and had seen the ropes, when somoene is suddenly 3 feet away from you on the other side of your window, you JUMP.
I lived on the 26th floor of an apartment building very near there. I don’t recall any particular swaying sensation in either. The apartment had a bit of a view up the river - I could JUST see a bridge (Queensboro, perhaps). The funniest sight though was when a blizzard blew through and we were looking north, watching the pigeons trying to fly and doing involuntary cartwheels :D.
I’ve never lived or worked in a tall building. But in 1974-1975 I was in a third floor barracks room, at the Presidio of Monterey. It’s built on a hill that slopes down to Monterey Bay. Sometimes the fog would roll in and lie over the bay, so we seemed “above the clouds”. For a gal raised in the central US it was really cool.
Yeah, I bet their were telescopes installed.