July 27, 2006
Danger! Danger! Sam Lowry! Danger!
I rarely, if ever, write about my work.
Today, however, is an exception.
A very big exception.
A little background. We had been told that on Monday the A/C was going to be shut off in our office for maintenance. Monday – the coolest day of the past week and the forecast next week – came and went, and our office was the coldest place in the building. Tuesday and Wednesday were only slightly warmer than Monday, and yet we still had very nice A/C temp, so we began to think that the A/C was never going to be turned off.
However, today, the hottest, most humid day of the week, leading into a warm week ahead, was the day. No A/C. It was also the day of insanity. I don’t mean just high stress busy schedule that has been building all week. I mean a have-I-lost-my-mind surreal insanity. While I am on hold with one person, conference call with another few people, working on a handful of Treos, in rolls our temporary replacement A/C unit.
It looked like something out of a 1940s sci-fi film. A two foot diameter duct descending from a hole they put in our ceiling and a couple one foot diameter ducts arching out of a three foot high box with buttons and blinking lights. I half expected Jonathan Harris to try to kill me or Robert DeNiro to burst through the ceiling and rappel down.
Here it is:
And a close up of the entrance vortex:
