Wednesday that was, Covered books and Her Welshness.
Yup, yesterday was one of the fun days. You know the sort, no happy medium no quiet efficient work. It was either foot flat on the accelerator or an emergency stop followed by or perhaps including a bootlegger turn whilst whistling the Andorran national anthem (marks for anyone who gets the literary reference).
So, stop go all day, from hitting the first cup of coffee at 9.30 as I pootled in that morning to around 7.10pm as I meandered out that night nothing was going to be easy. Spent the best of part of 4 hours with 2 delightful engineers from an alarm company wandering the vasty corridors of our august main building.
For those of you who haven’t been here the building is in fact 5 buildings crushed into one. The main part having been built in the 1820’s with it’s rather grand mock Grecian portico and then as with all non-elected bodies it sort of spread. A sideways cancer to the south and the west. Engulfing in a metastatic consumption a Fire insurance building (with original features still extant), and three smaller chambers including allegedly m’lud the site once owned by a Mr. Todd.
Hence the interior of the building is something of a warren. 3 (4 stories - if you count a mezzanine) on one side splurging over to meet 5 stories next to 3 stories next to 6 stories. All of which have interconnecting passageways, half stairways, hanging ceilings, raised floors and is generally labyrinthine. So when you try and explain to an engineer that having walked round one corner and up 3 steps you have actually gone up 2 floors and yes really where I’m pointing to on the map is where we are. You start to get a bit wearied by the constant rustle of papers and the sort of looks that would suggest that you are viewed as something between a pathological liar and some idiot savant whose only skill is to know exactly where they are.
Oh and of course then we had the basements…. One main floor area all roughly on the same level followed with several others, and it depends on what you choose to count as a basement here. Rather like those people who claim to be a little bit pregnant, or a tad racist, or slightly communist you have to say - that’s a F!!!ing basement. You can’t have a bit of a basement, it’s some rooms downstairs connected and underground, we call those basements over here, sure you might call them home or a hobbit hole if you really must but…. The end thing is that a group of rooms clustered together underground is a basement, if they aren’t linked together you really have to call them separate basements. This apparently was something of an evolutionary idea for the guys I was talking with. I especially loved some of the markings on their maps, the word void for instance. Now I looked at it and thought that void meant, well open space, lacking in anything and probably quite difficult to reach. I have later discovered is what void means is “area too difficult to map and so we haven’t bothered”.
Well that was the morning blown and only 2 coffees drunk. At this point I am indeed starting to get the shakes and of course my normal calm and pleasant demeanour is starting to evaporate. So I recharge with same caffeine, nicotine and the day’s paperwork in my hidden lair. So roughly thirty minutes of piece and quiet and ready for the afternoon extravaganza. We’ve got around 1000 graduates and their families coming in for 3 ceremonies from a North London poly, or a city university as they like to call it. So, probably around 2500 - 3000 trogging through the doors over next 8 hours. Not much of a problem more a cattle herding issue.
Anyway that kicks off happily and then the phone goes. Apparently there is a tramp in the graduation drinks and canapés and he’s causing a problem, can we do something about it. Occasionally we get the odd walk in, but they are pretty rare. Today would be a good for one so yup we’ve got a walk in.
I head up to the room and see what is happening. Only to find out from the organiser that that was around an hour and a half ago. So we’re off to the races in catch up mode. The organiser is pissed and wants a lot of money knocked off the event costs. Meetings and events are pissed because they are going to have money taken from their budget to balance things out. My boss is pissed because we let some walk in into the building. Me, well I’m just trying to get a straight story.
Anyway get a description of a guy in his 60’s, baseball cap, blue jacket, apparently grabbing bottles of wine. Storming onto the stage and dancing and singing along to Jamie Cullum. At this point I’m getting flash backs to my wedding. So I ask the catering staff who had been up there and they tell a slightly different story. Key to which of course is the guy is well spoken, and they all thought he was someone’s grandfather, oh and no theft, but the dancing was quite good. Hmmm, things aren’t quite what they first appeared I muse. Head down and check the CCTV records to see if I can spot the bloke coming in. All the while getting some suitably incendiary emails from various staff members about how shit security is and why we spend so much money on them…
On the whole I blank the emails and just get on with it, then as a piece of joy one of my bods tells me the guys fast asleep in the members’ room off in one corner. Great stuff because now I know exactly what I’m looking for. A couple more minutes and I’ve got the guy coming in to the building. And moohahahah he’s a member, absolute access privileges.
All I will say is after certain groups had inflated problems and ran all the way up their hierarchical ladders to important people they all had to do a rather fast climb down. Most entertaining of course was that obviously I had to write the incident up and send up to the SMT so a whole flurry of un-altered emails gets attached and annotated. There were several interesting uses of demeaning, intimidating and insulting language so that’s fun. Plus got to wind relevant people up about whether or not I’d edited my versions. Now that would be telling ;)