So, last week, my office flooded. Apparently, in the community college micro-climate there was a perfect storm of not-quite-finished roofing work and torrential rain. I got a call on my cell phone from
counterintuitive, announcing that water was pouring from the ceiling, all over the
- desk
- art
- printer
- shelves
- stacks of crap piled on every horizontal surface
- treasured photos of my beloveds.
Before I could make up my mind to get down there--the stacks of crap were what I thought of most--I heard that they'd shut down the building, rendering my dithering, shall we say, moot. Before they were kicked out, counterintuitive, my boss, and another friend rescued a few precious things. Then, I heard they had giant fans going, the power was shut off, blah blah blah.
Yesterday, I got the following phone calls from the historian:
- the Risk Management people want me to come and take everything out of my office by the end of the day. They're taking out the ceiling, which is made of asbestos dipped in asbestos, and textured in asbestos dots.
- the Risk Management people have already taken everything out of my office. They're in a hurry.
So I went to the big room where they'd removed all the books, furniture, shelves, desk, etc. I found, also, the stacks of crap, looking a little wrinkled for their brief sojourn underwater. Almost everything looked just fine, hurray. They're supposed to finish the ceiling, and then there will be new carpet, so it's kind of an everybody wins scenario, especially if I can get in there and toss the stacks. I think this will entail making categorical decisions, such as:
- if it was sitting on the floor, it is categorically crap and can be tossed without further ado.
- if it was in a miscellaneous stack on my main desk or my other desk, it is categorically crap and can be tossed &c.
- if it was in a folder and therefore belonged at one time to a student, it is not crap, but it is nonetheless tossable without sorting or other fretting.
A fortunate accident, right? because my office will be freshly carpeted, newly ceilinged, and de-crappified when I come back to use it again.
Yay to tossing willy-nilly. I love the freedom that comes with tossing.
ReplyDeleteWe were up there yesterday and it was an asbestos ridden hell hole. It smelled like shite and no one was working. There were fans on everything. My advice is to stay away for as long as possible.
ReplyDeleteFloods are great ways of getting rid of things. Said boss has apparently experienced three of them. I've experienced two (and several uncounted minor ones.) I fear our mutual Karma brought this one.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry and so happy that every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining. It certainly is going to pump up our new Publication Center.
Alas, it was ready to roll with old carpet, old lights, and asbestos-dipped-in-asbestos tiles.
Guess we start over again on that one.
And I disagee with Dr. Write. We were scurried away in our shite smelling hell-holes (no A/C). I made the sane choice of keeping our student friends on the first floor.
I've since moved into our friend Lis's old office. It is interesting down there. Someone finally told the ITP guy he had a fax waiting and that stopped the interminable beep.
And I did write a telegraph poem on this subject. Q.V. signifyingnothing.com.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you can find the positive in all this; I was devastated for you.
ReplyDeleteI hear that the culprit was a plugged drain, plugged up and forgotten during roof construction.
and I felt so so helpless as the water was pouring down.
ReplyDelete