On Thursday, at work, one of my co-workers came into my office and said, “You need to come see this,”
Now, anything that we would need to see that isn’t already on a computer is kinda novel.
We went right out of the office area to see a flood of water coming towards us – slowly but surely – down the carpeted hallway.
Apparently, the bathroom upgrades had gone awry and a broken pipe flooded part of the building. They got the water turned off, but not before a number of offices and cubes were flooded. The call went out to evacuate the building and we shut down our computers and headed out. Our area wasn’t really in danger, but there was a concern about electricity shorting out or surges. I worked from home the rest of the day.
We were back in the office on Friday and other than a bunch of high-powered de-humidifiers things were back to normal. I guess the carpets are going to be cleaned soon in case there’s a mold danger.
Still, pretty crazy. Since we’re all about computers there, a flood is an odd and deeply unnerving thing.
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Just before lunch on Friday, I was working on about three different things and trying to keep some folks on track with other projects. The usual. Then, from down the hall, I heard a phone ring. I recognized it from the conference room and figured that someone was having a participant call in for a meeting.
Except it kept ringing.
And ringing. It was like something out of a Poe novel. It got in my head. It got in my very soul.
Now, I kinda hate attention-getting devices. The fryers at McDonald’s are the worst, but this phone was quickly getting on my nerves. And in my soul – as I mentioned.
And since it’s in a conference room, there’s no voice-mail for it to roll over to. I couldn’t figure out why the caller didn’t give up, but finally took matters into my own hands.
I stopped what I was doing, went down the hall to the empty conference room, and answered the damn phone.
And it was hold music – our own hold music. Someone must have tried to call and things got weird and left the call on hold as they hung up. So, we were essentially getting a call from our own phone system.
If I hadn’t intervened, that thing would have rung forever. Or at least until the next meeting.
I hung up the phone and went back to work.
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Our department employs student assistants to help out with some of our projects. These can range from full-on application development, graphics, or content updates. And on Friday, one of our best had his last day.
And I say that not just because I know he reads my blog (“Hi!”), but because he really was great to work with. Smart, funny, and with an interesting take on modern culture.
I took him out for lunch and then we wrapped up a couple of projects. He’s extra busy this semester and just didn’t have the hours to keep working with us. I’m hoping he remembers our little team when he becomes crazy successful.