Life — October 12, 1922 — page 13: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This six-panel comic by Gluyas Williams depicts an escalating office building scenario. A man in a hat repeatedly presses an elevator button on different floors, becoming increasingly frustrated. By the final panel, he's apparently given up on the elevator entirely—the last frame shows what appears to be a chaotic scene at ground level. The satire targets the common frustration of waiting for elevators in modern office buildings. Williams exaggerates the man's mounting impatience and desperation across the sequence, culminating in the "Down!" caption. The joke likely comments on the absurdity of urban office life and the helplessness people feel when confronted with slow, unresponsive mechanical systems—a relatable complaint for Life magazine's readers in the early-to-mid twentieth century.