Day 5: Office Under Siege

This morning, I had a feeling I shouldn't go into work - that I should just have stayed home, drank coffee, and just enjoyed a rainy day. Unfortunately, I didn't have any comp time, my vacation's already booked, and I couldn't think of a good sick day excuse. My call into work would have been really lame, something like,

"Hi, it's Gordon. I can't come into the office today - I have the disease Ali McGraw had in Love Story"

It didn't help that, this past week, my office had been "cleaned out" due to rain flooding. Although the initial flood happened on the 4th of July, we were told that the roofers had "fixed" the problem. After the second time, and having to endure huge, noisy, industrial-strength dehumidifiers, I thought it was safe to go back. This morning, my office - as well as the two offices beside me - were flooded again.

Admittedly, much of my time in the office has been spent helping prepare for a huge conference next weekend, as well as several smaller projects - nothing as major as the conference, and even that, I had copied the Power Point presentation onto diskette and writing notes on hard copy. Having been an "exile" from my office due to meetings, noise, etc, I was looking forward to a long day of, well, doing small work and goofing off. Maybe even getting my stats in early, and then leaving...or even writing another chapter or two (I'm two and a half chapters in - yay for me!)

Unfortunately, the damage is great - there is a huge tarf running from the roof of my office, and the water is flowing into one of those huge carriers. The kind of Rubbermaid carrier that you use to carry loads of laundry. Yes, it was that much water.
And, of course, the only work area that was available was the computer & work area in the front of the office...so much for privacy.

Luckily, our executive director was going around, and (obviously) he was not too happy about matters - one of the offices hit was our main prevention secretary; the other was a director's office, and several key documents were destroyed. In addition, two computers
were wet, meaning that they would have to be replaced. (My only real "loss" was a copy of Guerilla Publicity, but if someone wants to purchase a replacement as a gift, please be my guest).

When our executive director asked me what kind of car I wanted (read: we're going to get everything that was damaged replaced), I quickly answered, "A '76 Cadillac...black with red interior."
(Aka, the car I learned to drive in). When he said that he wanted to get me a new car, and announced an Escalade, I asked, "Can I have some bling-bling with that?"

I know, nothing sadder than a guy tryin' too hard to be hip.

Right now, I'm trying to decide between a happy hour, meeting some other friends, laundry, and/or sleep - it's been that kind of week, folks. Even if I don't make anything tonight, there's tomorrow night's benefit concert.

Some days, I really regret not becoming an accountant, like my dad wanted.