The Office

Well, not "THE Office" -- just mine.

Two funny/weird things happened today:

1. Got an e-mail from a mathematics professor with whom I work: "Susan, I just got your voicemail." (that I left two weeks ago.) "There is something wrong with my SmartVoice." (our voicemail client.) "SmartVoice doesn't tell me when I have new messages. It should be referred to as the Dumbest of the DumbVoice. So, if you leave me a voicemail message, make sure that you e-mail me to tell me that you left a message."

2. When I opened my office door, I was greeted with the sight of 4 or 5 acoustic ceiling tiles and two big fluffy slabs of pink insulation strewn across my credenza and the Norfolk pine which are on the east side of the room. (Don't eat the insulation no matter how much it looks like cotton candy.) We had a horrendous storm last night, but I couldn't quite figure out how THAT could have happened since we are on the ground floor of a 17 story building. RLM! RLM! I also notice a rather large "ell" air conditioning duct piece on top of my bookcase. WTF? WTF?

So, I call maintenance and they dispatch someone to look at it. In the meantime, Jesse comes in and opens the conference room door and notices water all over the carpet. We open the other advisor's office, and it too is soaked. Since the other office, the conference room, and my office are all on the north side of the building, we think, "uh-oh" -- perhaps my office is wet, too. Sure enough -- our offices have wall to ceiling glass and the seals on the lower third must have given way what with the wind and all.

The maintenance crew comes with an extractor and attack the soggy carpets. Another crew comes to put my ceiling back together. Eying the a/c duct part on my bookcase, I ask, "Uh, are we going to be without air conditioning today?" The crew leader says, "No, because that duct piece wasn't attached to anything -- it was never hooked up to the system and it doesn't belong there." Gee, that's the way to get rid of spare parts -- just stash them on top of the acoustic ceiling tiles which are strong enough to hold, oh, nothing heavier than the Des Moines, Iowa phone book.

The other advisor's office smelled, so I wafted a stick of lavender incense around and Jess sprayed some disinfectant spray. We'll have to see what it looks like on Monday (or rather smell what it's like.)

The crews worked quickly, and we were able to be back at our desks by 10:30.

Never a dull moment in the RLM. (Robert Lee Moore Hall)