Why You Can’t Work at Work

Shitty experience at Cunningham’s Gap

So Easter is over.

Yesterday SB and I decided that we wanted to go to for a bit of a hike.

Cunningham’s Gap is divided in half by a road. On one side is Mount Mitchell, which we hiked last year during the Queen’s Birthday break, so this year we decided to do some of the walks on the other side of the road.

We took the hour and a half long drive down from Brisbane and when we got there SB and I needed to use the bathroom. The bathrooms at Cunningham’s Gap are your typical nature reserve bathrooms. They are tiny, built from wood and are really close to each other. Any excrement goes right into a waste tank under the toilets. I think this is then carted away at some stage.

So I went to the men’s bathroom and SB went to the ladies room. They are diagonally situated next to each other, probably so that all the waste can just flow right into the tank tank below. I finished first and stepped out to wash my hands when I heard a scream from the ladies room. Thinking that SB probably saw a spider or some creepy crawly I asked her what was wrong, and she ran out of the bathroom. “I saw a man in the toilet” she said.

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Pleased to meat you.

How Johnson ended up with this cut is a long story.

It started with someone doing welding in the restaurant downstairs.

We work in an incubator on the 1st floor of the Data #3 building. Attached to the side of this building is a restaurant. It’s just there. Stuck to the side of the building kind of like a wart. Like a wart, the restaurant grows into the building. It’s roots draws electricity, water, even air conditioning from the building.

On this day, someone decided that something needed to be fixed in that restaurant and sent for some welders. The welders came and did their welding in the restaurant. Because the restaurant is inextricably linked with the building, some of the fumes and smoke from the welding managed to make its way into the air conditioning duct. This smoke made its way up the duct and into the first floor where we all work.

At the time I had just finished a meeting, and the rest of the guys were doing what they usually do. Johnson, the owner of the gashed thumb was standing somewhere in the corner of the office as he sometimes does, talking to someone. As he sometimes does.

Then I smelled something burning. It was a rather acrid smell. Everyone else seemed to have noticed it but said nothing. “What the fuck is that smell?” I said. And people started saying they noticed it as well. I was sitting at my desk at the time, and none of our computers had caught fire before, so I assumed that it was the fan.

I went over to the fan and took a whiff. It seemed to be coming from the fan. So I said “Shit the fan is on fire!”. The fan itself was intact. It is a white, plastic fan, and there was no evidence of blackening or any other fire like symptoms, but everyone else in the office agreed and decided to discuss this rather loudly and in a concerned tone of voice. Some other people smelled the smoke and it was starting to get just very slightly smokey in the communal office space. So people proceeded to come out of their offices. Those in cubicles poked their heads up looking worried.

I took a closer look at the fan, and then looked at the smokey office. It couldn’t have been a fan. So I said “I think the office is on fire. Take the ferrero rocher and let’s get the hell out of here!”.

Prior to me smelling the smoke, Sam had received a free box of Ferrero Rocher which he earned by completing a survey for a new cloud based photo storage company that he found on Twitter. It was posted to him. By express post I think.

The alarm didn’t go off, so clearly there wasn’t a fire, but the smoke was making many of us feel rather uncomfortable so we decided to go out for some fresh air. Gavin ran off first, clutching the box of brownies he had backed for us. Reuben and George came along with me and Sam went to the bathroom. With his box of Ferrero Rocher. At this point I was not sure where Johnson had ended up.

We took the stairs, because it was quicker. All the way down to the basement carpark we ran. Eventually getting out of the basement and all assembling at the foyer. Gavin offered us his brownies and we talked about projects for awhile. Once that was done, everyone decided to go back upstairs, but Reuben and I had to go to Hanaro Mart to purchase some asian delicacies. The guy at the counter was listening to Radio Gaga by Queen.

Reuben bought an interesting bottled drink. There wasn’t a screw cap. The bottle top is a ball lodged in the bottle’s plastic mouth. To get to the drink, one had to use a tool provided in a plastic cover to push the bottle in. This takes place with a satisfying pop that will cause the contents of the bottle to fizz slightly. So Reuben popped the bottle and we went back to the office to be productive.

Back at the office, Reuben decided that he wanted to get the ball out of the bottle. Because of the design of the bottle, there is really no way to get the ball out except by either taking off the very securely fastened plastic mouth, or by breaking the bottle.

Sam tried to pries the top of the bottle off, but that didn’t work. So I decided to try and cut it with Sam’s serrated knife. This didn’t work and after awhile I got tired of it and tried to break the bottle. First with a paperweight and then by stamping on it like at a Jewish wedding. Of course I put it in an envelope before stamping on it so that glass would fly all over. That didn’t work either, so we all went back to work.

Later I went for a late lunch with George. George had some Indian food his wife prepared and I had some oats, which Uncle Toby prepared and I hydrated. As we were having lunch, Reuben and Sam came in to the kitchen looking worried. They took the first aid box from the shelf and looked through it for plasters.

“What’s up?” I said. “Johnson cut himself.” They said. “How did he do that?” I said. “He was trying to get the ball out of the bottle.”

Not long after, Johnson who had gone to the bathroom to wash his gash came into the kitchenette looking rather sheeping. They didn’t find any plasters so they had to use bandage. They took all the bandage from the first aid box and brought it to the office and bandaged up his thumb.

George and I finished our lunch, and in Hanaro Mart the guy at the counter continued listening to Queen.