We have an elevator in our hospital that is always breaking down. The joke among us cellar dwellers is that you only get on it if the food cart is going up. You never know when you are going to need provisions.
I was TDY in the western Aleutians, at COBRA DANE, a radar the height of a ten story building. The floors were spaced at 1 1/2 the height of a normal building, so they were separated by three tiers of steps instead of the normal two, in other words, each floor was one and a half floors high.
The operators were typically 50+ sedentary chainsmokers. The ops room was on the 5th floor, which was like six flights of stairs ((5-1) x 1.5). The elevator went down due to an overheating 5 Volt power supply in the control circuitry. The radar maintainers bypassed the faulty power supply with a lambda lab supply and blew air over the whole control assembly with a window fan. Now, the law governing the maintenance of the building was the State of Alaska, and they less than zero presence, but just in case they found out...
Otis wanted some outrageous fee to come out and fix it (and you need a letter from a general to get on the island) and there only one or two flights a week. Eventually the maintenance contractor shelled out and got it fixed.