I’ve always heard that you can burn off a few extra calories by taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

If that’s not enough to get you climbing to your desk in the morning, here are a few other reasons you might want to consider:

1) Avoid mundane elevator conversation with fellow employees.

Hey, did you know that it’s Monday morning? Jim in accounting will be sure to remind you. He hates Mondays. Have you tried that new place on Davis Island? He has.

And do you think Susan really cares how it’s goin’? Happy Friday.

2) Be prepared in the event of a fire drill.

I can personally vouch for this. Yesterday, production on my Super Bowl Of Pizza (shameless plug) was interrupted by a 5,000-decibel, ear-piercing electronic screaming sound and flashing strobe lights. (No, I don’t work at the Amphitheater in Ybor.)

Immediately, I sprung from my chair (after a quick ctrl+S), scrambled for the door, and flew down two flights of stairs to the parking lot--and I still had enough breath in me to chat with an old friend from another department.

Gotta’ love fire drills.

3) Elevator buttons are yucky.

Who knows what germs are lurking on those nasty things?

One day you’re a responsible employee trying to make it to your office in the quickest, most direct fashion. The next, you’re in bed hacking up a cornucopia of nasty mucus.

Plus, if you use all of your sick days being sick, when will you go to Epcot?

4) The bad guys can’t cut the cable.

You’ve seen it in a million movies. Just when the hero declares victory and is on his way to the ground floor to untie the girl--there’s a loud thud from above!

Yikes! Somebody’s on the roof! And they’re cutting the cables!

What’s the worst thing a villain can do in the stairwell? Tie your shoelaces together?

5) People don’t get trapped in stairwells.

Every sitcom from the past three decades has had the “trapped in an elevator” episode.

Sometimes it’s to teach two characters at odds a valuable life lesson in finding common ground. Or a man is trapped with his boss’s pregnant wife who is about to--oops!--go into labor. Any way you slice it, there are few people I’d like to share finite amounts of oxygen with.

Plus, even in the event of a freak stair outage, there are worse places to spend the remainder of your life. Living among the stairs has advantages. Imagine having your own personal exercise room. With unlimited shelf space.

There you have it! No more excuses. Start climbing and feel the burn! After a few weeks you will see that it gets easier.

I promise.