Frustrated May 25, 2009

Remember how excited I was that we were ahead of the game for once at work?  We opened with a few minor hiccups and things were grand; I had a great weekend on Tuesday and Wednesday but on Thursday morning things fell through…I got into the shop to find it was “harmlessly” vandalised.  10 lbs of fire extinguisher was let off in our kitchen, most specifically into our fridge and microwave.

I would never have realised all of the work that has to go into cleaning up something like this.  There are 11 or so years of my clutter in the office that has to be dusted off and put into boxes until the cleaning crew can come in and vacuum and wash down the walls (the powder reached my station which was very far from the kitchen).  All of our food had to be tossed.  We are sending out all of the clothes and any of the fabric that wasn’t in the closets to be cleaned; the remaining chemicals aren’t necessarily harmful but they are irritants and I have to wear a mask when I’m up there or I lose my voice.  We have to wait for the machines to be professionally cleaned out because we don’t want the dust to mix with the oils in the machines and gum them up.  We had to dust off the plants and move them into the greenhouse to recover, and I’m waiting for the office to be cleaned so that I can clean the fish-tank because the cleaning will kick up the dust again.

It could have been worse though; there was no theft, no injuries, and any damage, with the exception of the food (and maybe the fridge and microwave), is reparable.  But there are a few people who will be without costumes until everything comes back from the dry-cleaners and the launderers.  Yesterday was the first day I wasn’t sarcastic about it and I didn’t go home depressed and angry as I had for the previous few days.  But I’d like my office back.

However, there are some positive things to come out of this; we’ve had a lot of help and some of the staff have even come in on their own time to help clean up, and we now have an opportunity to declutter which we wouldn’t typically be able to do in the beginning of the season.  But “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”