The company for whom I once worked went through a brief period of expansion, during which the department I worked in was transferred from the one-story main building to a "second-floor" office above their new retail store. I put "second-floor" in quotes because the height of the first floor was two stories, and we had to go up two flights' worth of stairs to get to the office area. There were no elevators or escalators. There were two stairways: one was a fire-exit hallway littered with fallen ceiling tile damaged by the perpetually-leaking roof; the other was an open metal staircase leading up from the floor of the warehouse behind the store.

I have respiratory problems (sarcoidosis and asthma) and the warehouse was so filthy and dusty that I couldn't enter it, much less walk the length of it to get to the staircase, much much less climb those stairs hyperventilating all that dust. I had to fight the Human Resources department to get permission to use the fire-exit staircase, the air of which contained dust and mold from the crumbling, wet ceiling tile and was likewise difficult to breathe in.

I have lupus and often use a cane to walk, and I had great difficulty negotiating those stairs. An older co-worker had an operation on her foot and had to negotiate the metal stairs in a cast and crutches for several weeks. Human Resources promised us repeatedly that an elevator would be installed, but that never happened.

And -- you guessed it -- the bathrooms in the office area were handicapped accessible, railings and all.