A note from The Powers That Be

The other day at work we received an email from the Facilities department addressing some issues about our building. I found it quite funny. I have the feeling that was probably unintentional. Since I haven't posted in awhile, I thought it'd be fun to point out some of the more humourous parts here (ie, my life is so sad I have nothing better to talk about than work).

Meeting Points
The triangular meeting points on each floor are designed for small meetings. By the end of December the light sensors will be altered and light switches installed so that you can control the amount of light in the room.

The thing that is funny here is why they need to install light switches in the meeting rooms. Currently, the entire building's lights work on motion sensors. They come on when you walk in the room and they go out after 15 minutes of not detecting any motion (I've had the lights go out on me a few times because I sit a bit far from the nearest detector in my section, and I guess I was being particularly dead or something). Anyway, the meeting rooms are this way too, and none of the building planners thought that you might need to turn out the lights to, say, see a presentation projected on a screen. Fortunately TPTB are smart enough to install switches now.

Lifts:
Our lift supplier is working hard to rectify the various idiosyncrasies found in some of our lifts. One of the most annoying is the memory failure when more than one or two people press a floor selection.

"Various idiosyncrasies..." That's one way of putting it. Another way is "working hard to keep them from killing a lift full of people." I've heard endless stories of people being stuck in the lifts, the lifts opening well above or below where the floor is, and more scary, of them free-falling a few floors. I've been fortunate enough to not have any of those experiences. I have experienced the last thing they are talking about though, that the lift could only remember a maximum of 3 floors people had pushed buttons for; push any more than that and it'd clear all the floors that'd been chosen. Very handy when you have 8 people going to 6 different floors. And then a new person gets in and you say "don't hit the button!" and they go "Enh? What silly sort of thing to say...." and shrug as they hit the button and immediately get locked in a small space with 8 people who'd really like to kill them.

Another fun thing about the lifts are the helpful instructions about what to do in an emergency. I can't remember the wording exactly, but it's something like:

1. Press the alarm button.
2. You will be connected to someone who can help you.
3. If the alarm button does not connect you to anyone, repeat steps 1 and 2.

That's its great advice? "Keep hitting the button"?! Lord...

Smoking Rooms
Tests have been made by a building engineering firm and their recommendations are being reviewed.

Why did the smoking rooms need to be reviewed? Because they handily just released all their smoke into the building instead of ventilating it to the outside, choking all of the people who worked on the floors where they are located (there's not one on each floor, just ones in the middle and at the top, I think). So, the smoking rooms are closed, and in the meantime, smokers are forced out into the cold to stand in an uncovered area at the back of the building. I'm not a smoker, so I don't really care, but I find it funny how incredibly poorly the rooms' ventilation worked in a brand-new building. On a related note, you can strongly smell the fry grease from the cantine near our floor's lifts, and there's 7 floors between us.

Parking Garage:
Fender benders in the parking garage can be avoided! Should you happen to cause damage to another car, please leave a note behind with your name and number.

This one isn't about the building, but the people that work in it. It doesn't happen often, but I've seen 2-3 emails saying something like "Could the person who dented/scratched my car yesterday in the garage please come forward?" Hello? How rude is it to bump your car into a co-worker's and then just walk away?! That takes some gall.