Why I Come To Work Early

(An update on my office flooding situation of last week)

So, I come into work today at 6:40am. I'm wondering if my office will be a) flooded, b) stinky, or c) fine. I smell a beauteous scent wafting through the corridors. I begin to worry that my office will be overwhelmingly beauteously scented, such that I will asphyxiate at my computer. I unlock the office door.

No worries about overwhelmingly beauteous odours, ladies and gents. The stench of the day before was back. This is after a carpet cleaning the day before, and with a whole night of three fans blasting on the carpet to dry it. As my two windows don't open (they're painted shut), the stench just lingers and festers and begins to seep into my neighboring officemate's offices.

Well, after I picked my semi-conscious self up from the doorway, I staggered over to the kitchen, where I blearily made myself some coffee and decided whose desk I would invade for the day.

Eventually my boss gets in. He says he doesn't smell anything at all. I lead him to my office and guide him to my chair. "What about there," I suggest. The world always seems bleaker from behind my desk, I figure. But no, he still smells nothing. Now I'm wondering if my symptoms are psychosomatic. He sniffs deeply. Shakes his head. Puts his coffee down. And then gets down onto the floor to sniff the carpet.

"Well," he cedes, "if you put your nose in the carpet then it smells."

I tell him I frequently work that way, and replace my would-be gales of laughter with a mild, teary grin. It's still too early in the morning to subject everyone to my humour and cheerfullness.

I return to the other wing of the office. A few minutes later, he admits that he smells it.

I continue with my work, tapping away at a colleague's computer. I hear the footfall of my boss, striding down the corridor.

"Do you know where the hammer is," he asks, "I want to open the window."

Now I'm one chuffed early-riser. I've never seen anyone open a window with a hammer, you know, leave alone the only person in the office who can't be fired for it.

I follow him back to my office. He's managed to grab a hammer and a box cutter. This is the most entertaining morning ever. I stand behind him and wonder how safe this is. I figure that my staring at the proceedings will protect him from some nasty accident.

Well, it doesn't work.

When I talk to maintenance about it, I get two surprises.

1. The maintenance guy admits that my office stinks like ****. He then volunteers to get carpet cleaners in here again, for the second time in two days. I collapse in shock.
2. The maintenance guy says opening the windows is a bad idea. Firstly, there are fumes in that part of the building (not a beauteous odour). Secondly, and I quote, "the windows don't work."

I hadn't realized windows could "work" or "not work." Other than the Gates version, naturally. Apparently these windows don't close once they're open.

I don't know anymore...

By the day's end, when the carpet cleaners had come again, the maintenance guy was here again. Mind you, this is the same guy I had to corrall into my office and forcefully jump on the splashing carpet for to convince that there was a real problem here outside of my head. He sniffed the air, which I was breathing in happily by the gallon, and announced that it smelled. He thinks we'll know for sure whose nose is right in the morning.

I expect he's right. In other words, expect an update in the morn!

See all these adventures you too could have if you came in to work at the crack of dawn? I leave you now, 12 hours of joy over. :)