Employee Tries Working From Hole

A Philadelphia recreation-centre employee apparently decided that the usual route out of an office was insufficiently ambitious and allegedly tunnelled through the facility’s wall instead.

The incident began when the employee locked himself inside an office at the recreation centre. Why he did so is not clear, but the locked door soon became only the first obstacle in a workplace episode that took a sharply architectural turn.

Rather than simply remaining in the room, the employee allegedly began making his way through a wall of the facility. Most people confronted by an office door tend to use the handle, ask someone with a key for help or, in especially trying circumstances, accept that they may be late for lunch. This employee is accused of approaching the problem as though the recreation centre had suddenly become the setting for a prison escape.

The available details do not say what tools, if any, were involved, how far the alleged tunnelling progressed or what lay on the other side of the wall. What is clear is that an employee was locked in an office, the wall became involved, and police were called to deal with the situation.

Officers eventually took the employee into custody. That brought the incident to an end, though it presumably left the recreation centre with the separate matter of a wall that had allegedly been treated less as a permanent part of the building and more as an alternative exit.

No motive has been given for the employee’s actions, and there is no information about whether anyone else was hurt or whether the recreation centre’s operations were disrupted. The account also does not specify when the incident occurred, identify the employee or say what legal consequences may follow.

For now, the known sequence is brief but difficult to improve upon: a recreation-centre worker in Philadelphia locked himself in an office, allegedly tried to tunnel through the facility’s wall, and was ultimately taken into police custody.

It is not known what happens next for the employee or the damaged area of the building. The police intervention has, however, settled the immediate question of whether tunnelling through the workplace is a practical substitute for using the door marked “Exit.”