Except this once:
My boss has finally, finally! become interested in the new lab, now that we have an official move date in a mere three months. I've been plodding along with plans and clear-outs for nearly two years now.
The other lab members and I have been talking about where we think stuff should go, but my boss has claimed supreme authority, even going so far as to pull plans out from under my hands and shove them in a drawer, saying that he didn't want me spending time on this and that he'd rearrange everything anyway. Those plans lay fallow for two months, made the trip to his office, lived there for a week, and are now back on my desk, where we all knew they'd wind up in the first place.
Today the two of us went over to the new building to look for errors, omissions, and inconsistencies.
It was also a chance for us to figure out where things would go. Standing in the space, rather than looking at an architect's indecipherable layered layout, certainly makes things a lot easier.
In the second room, a windowless space with bright ceiling lights, as we pondered where best to put a dry erase board, I asked, "Where's the light switch?" No light switch. Not in the room, not in the hallway either. Oops.
The emergency power outlets that I'd sat down with one of the architects to plan out, room by room? Not there.
Rooms that needed to be in complete darkness for microscopy? Not so much, because apparently a windowless room must always be lit by a bank of lights one cannot control, in case of fire or something.
At the end of our main space, we noticed a metal box fitted into the wall. There were two parts to it. One had a handle. The other had a lever. I gingerly pulled the handle to reveal a fold-out eyewash. Clever; every other eyewash I've seen has been a space-hogging, stand-alone structure that serves a something to crash into. I pushed it closed again.
My boss didn't get a good look, so he opened it too, this time far enough out to get the water running. Hastily, he pushed it shut. It wouldn't close. "Uh oh," he said. Water gushed from a drain in the wall towards a drain in the floor.
I took over trying to close it, and as I did, he put his hand on the lever. "What does this do?" He pulled. We heard a flushing sound, and then the emergency shower, which I happened to be standing underneath in order to close the eyewash door, rained down upon us both, mostly onto me.
I couldn't stop laughing for five minutes.
"This is a bonding moment," he said. At least he could take off his suit jacket. I was simply glad that I was wearing a dark-colored t-shirt.
"You're wet," he said.
"Quite."
"Two PhDs," I said, "And neither one of us bothers to look up."
1 comment:
Priceless!
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