Man whose umbrella locked workers out of office for two days reveals how they finally got back in

The man whose umbrella caused an office to be blocked for days has spoken about the picture that went viral (Twitter/@NeerajKA)
The man whose umbrella caused an office to be blocked for days has spoken about the picture that went viral (Twitter/@NeerajKA)

The owner of an umbrella that went viral after it was pictured locking an office door has spoken out about how the situation was resolved.

Mike Ponticelli found that he and his colleagues had been locked out of their office when the umbrella landed at the exact spot that prevented the door being opened.

A picture of the predicament quickly went viral on Twitter after it emerged the workers had been shut out for two days.

With the internet demanding that the glass be broken to remove the umbrella, Mike admitted that he and his co-workers did not really know how to resolve the situation.

He told Vice: “We stood there for 30 minutes. It was like in Looney Tunes when you take the canned goods and you just smash it with a club over and over. We tried to jiggle the door.

“It was geometrically perfect, how the umbrella had fallen. The door would not budge.

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“We tried coat hangers, we tried our fingers, we tried wedging it, we tried picking it up.”

After calling the building managers, the situation was still not resolved and Mike and his colleagues set up camp elsewhere in the building to work.

The picture of the umbrella then began to spread across the internet, with people demanding the glass be broken so they could get back inside.

But Mike said that there was no emergency, adding: “It’s just a room with computers. Everyone was cool. Nobody’s insulin was trapped inside or anything.”

Mike has now revealed that he is back in the office - with not a single piece of shattered window in sight.

He explained: “Someone cut through the floor of the fifth floor and into our fourth floor office. Then they used a bit of wire to pry loose the umbrella. There’s still a hole in the ceiling now, about the size of a gherkin.”

Mike believes the umbrella may have fallen when maintenance crew did work in the offices last week, and said “something happened that caused the umbrella to fall in such a way that could never be replicated in 1,000 years”.

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