Nobody (neither occupants or emergency crews) actually count the floors, the numbers just serve as labels. The numbers on the buttons in the elevator will correspond with the numbers on doors in the stairwell. It doesn’t matter if you skip numbers, start counting from the top down, or use letters instead of numbers, they are all just labels. And labels get used differently in different places. For example, if you jump out a 1st floor window in the UK you’ll fall considerably farther than if you jump out a 1st floor window in the US.
“I’m staying at a hotel and it doesn’t have a 13th floor ’cause of superstition. But c’mon, people on the fourteenth floor, you know what floor you’re really on. If you jump out of the fourteenth floor window hoping to kill yourself, you will die earlier.” - Mitch Hedberg
Especially if you’re in room 1408.
Mad Magazine once published a bunch of joke stickers in their annuals. One read:
“Attention tenants on the 14th floor. You’ve really been on the 13th floor all along. Good luck.”
God, this is stupid. I’d live on the 13th floor, and I’d be cool with my address being 666, too. It’s just numbers. And it’s 2009. And it’s the First World. Come on.
goes away shaking head
The oriental-themed hotel I am staying in this week has no 4th floor. And now I know why. I’ll have to check when I go back tonight to see if there is a 13th floor.
Thanks for that link, Sternvogel. Ogden Nash rules.
Wow. I posted, wandered off and return to find all these great responses.
Thanks everybody.
I didn’t know about the #4 in certain areas. Just as weird.
I too work on the dreaded 13th floor. I didn’t have to learn a sinister laugh or anything.
I can’t remember the last time I was in a building over 13 floors that followed that silly superstition of skipping the 13th floor.
:shrug:
I work in a 26-story building … we have a 13th-floor button in the elevator.
Don’t they put ‘mechanical’ rooms on the 13th floor? (HV/AC Water pumps and such)
It’s common to have the 13th floor omitted in Thailand. Thais are extremely superstitious, but that one’s not part of the culture. They’re clearly borrowing it. I guess any old superstition will do.
I live in a 36-story building, but being on only the 6th floor, we routinely just take the stairs (about the only exercise I ever get). Just asked the wife, who takes the elevator much more than I do, if she knew what they do here, and she thinks it’s AA instead of 13 in the elevator.
I know of at least one building in Bangkok where the elevator buttons will say “12, 12A, 14,” but the electronic readout that shows you which floor you’re passing still flashes 13 instead of 12A. 
I dunno, I can imagine a scenerio involving ladder trucks on the outside trying to extend a ladder to the 14th floor for a rescue.
There is no 13th floor button at my building. I suppose it has something to do with the fact it is a six story building.
Are you sure that’s not due to the way they set up their express elevators?
I mean, if you worked on the 51st floor, you wouldn’t want to have to stop at each floor on the way up…
(Was I wooshed?)
Just to add another nugget of data to the heap: my apartment building in SoCal was only two stories, but across the courtyard from us was good ol’ unit 12A.
The numerical euphemism didn’t seem to particularly shower the resident with good fortune either, but he was a bit off anyhow and seemed amply gifted with a talent for antisocial behavior.
I’ve never been to Asia, so I’m speaking about what I have read, not from personal experience. But it’s been documented extensively and you can see it in the Wikipedia link, for starters.
I’ve worked in two buildings in downtown Indianapolis. One built in 1903, one in 1962. Both have at least 13 floors. The first is occupied by a law firm that started in room 1313 on the 13th floor, on September 13, with 13 staff members and a 1313 telephone suffix. They’re quite successful.
Quiet! Do you want the bridges to fall down?
Well, they’re lawyers. Self-explanatory, really.