We take safety for granted, everyone does really and it's easy to develop a sense of complacency when you work in an office. What can possibly go wrong in an office setting? Actually, quite a bit if you're not paying attention and I'll return to my previous mention of a sense of complacency. A paper cut? These actually hurt and I've seen employees in a really bad mood because of a paper cut. It's same sort of mood you get into when you're dealing with a stubborn hangnail or a long meeting with a group of people you don't like. Lighting, lighting has been a problem for some people because we used to work in a darker room. Some of these folks have been relocated to a windowed cube and they hate it, they're not as productive anymore.
My job is to perform a safety stand-down, now that we're moved in. I have to identify the safety hazzards of working in an office. Especially making sure that ergonomics is being comfortably observed. I also have to look for earthquake hazzards in case the big one slaps us. We've been hearing about the "the big one" for as long as I can remember. I think some people get a kick out of predicting doom but not really preparing for it. I was in in the NOrthridge earthquake, they're not fun and people were REALLY scared.
Tomorrow, Cherryl and I will walk through our four department's floor and inspect every office, officle and cube for lethal working conditions. We'll record every complaint from lighting to unregistered odors to loud phone talkers to just about, everything that's hazzardous in an office setting.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
O+1
O+1. President elect, Barack Obama won the 2008 election by a huge margin last night. The victory is bitter-sweet in some ways because in my opinion, if there's anyone out there that understands what it's like to fight for this country and to publicly serve its people, it is John McCain. But JM seems to be one of those guys that's just hounded by bad timing or forces beyond his control. The GOP seems to be the spanking-child and JM got lined up to take a spanking a long with all GOP members. He should have have won the primary eight years ago but for some reason, he didn't--this, I'll never understand.
Nobody talked about this at work because we don't usually mix politics or religion at work unless you know exactly that who you're talking to won't be offended by your views. We have a good environment at work and most of us know how we all stand or at least, have a good understanding.
Blake did ask me to bring some Obama victory cookies so I complied. Amy makes really good cookies and I like it when people compliment her culinary skills--they're honed and I'm too happy to enjoy every meal she makes.
Nobody talked about this at work because we don't usually mix politics or religion at work unless you know exactly that who you're talking to won't be offended by your views. We have a good environment at work and most of us know how we all stand or at least, have a good understanding.
Blake did ask me to bring some Obama victory cookies so I complied. Amy makes really good cookies and I like it when people compliment her culinary skills--they're honed and I'm too happy to enjoy every meal she makes.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
All moved in.
It's Tuesday and I'm moved in to my new cube--UNIT 2122. My cube, everyone has a cube now, they're nice cubes. Some people are happy in their new cubes, others are not. But you can't make everyone happy so... Still, my new cube is very nice. It's more quiet than where I used to be in SP2 (Building 2). I used to sit next a meeting room and it was obnoxious how people would mill about and compare smart-phones. Then was the occasional idiot who would step out of the meeting and subject the entire floor to his Nextel powered conversation. I say Nextel because he would use the walkie-talkie feature "DEE-DLE-EEEE!!". Someone finally had to step up and tell him that we were trying to work and to please step outside. Actually, he had to be told twice because his initial response was, "it'll only be a minute...". His minute conversations felt like an hour, the guy was just rude. But there is no Nextel guy here in SP3.
Some people in our department found themselves in cubes next to a window. Some complained stating that they were too bright. I guess they'd never heard of blinds, which all of those cubes have. But I go back to what I was saying before about some people not being happy.
Everything is great but the bathroom situation is interesting. The men's rooms are being renovated because too many employees complained that they had become nearly dysfunctional, the towel dispensers were falling apart or just wouldn't work anymore, maybe it had something to do with the dents on the sides. I'm not sure how anyone was able to complain because I usually found the towel dispensers empty, banging on them didn't encourage more towels to dispense either. The soap dispensers didn't work either and the counter tops were chipping and falling apart at the edges from staying wet all the time or it could be because there was always spewed liquid hand-soap all over the counter-top near the dispenser pump. The urinals seemed permanently stained and I won't go into describing what that looked like but it made you want to squat instead of stand. Lord knows what goblins were going to spring out of those urinals and offend you. So! All this had to go. Building management had converted one of the lady's rooms into a temporary men's room. Wow, what an experience. You walk into the ladies room and it's like you're staying a nice hotel, so clean, so neat, no chipped counter-tops, the towel dispensers looked brand new. It was disconcerting when I first walked in, where do I pee? Not in those toilets, those are too clean to pee in? And look! There are little cute hospitality dispensers everywhere. Everything's purple, pink and Easter Sunday-yellow unlike the stained navajo-white and tortured peach colored urinals we had in the men's room. In the ladies room, you want to sit in there are talk about other guys you work with, football, politics. It's no longer just a bathroom, it's a sanctuary or relaxation, a little order in the chaos that is work. It's no wonder women go in to their little sanctuaries two or three at a time. I imagine it's like going to a sports bar and having a beer.
Ok, you can tell that I was impressed by the ladies room. There's a rumor going around that the management is going to play on joke on everyone and convert the bathrooms back to what they used to be simply to see how many people they can confuse. I dont't think they will but it wold be fun to watch and listen to the occasional shrieks.
I'll document later how my time is going sitting in cube 2122 at SP3. So far it's pretty cool.
Some people in our department found themselves in cubes next to a window. Some complained stating that they were too bright. I guess they'd never heard of blinds, which all of those cubes have. But I go back to what I was saying before about some people not being happy.
Everything is great but the bathroom situation is interesting. The men's rooms are being renovated because too many employees complained that they had become nearly dysfunctional, the towel dispensers were falling apart or just wouldn't work anymore, maybe it had something to do with the dents on the sides. I'm not sure how anyone was able to complain because I usually found the towel dispensers empty, banging on them didn't encourage more towels to dispense either. The soap dispensers didn't work either and the counter tops were chipping and falling apart at the edges from staying wet all the time or it could be because there was always spewed liquid hand-soap all over the counter-top near the dispenser pump. The urinals seemed permanently stained and I won't go into describing what that looked like but it made you want to squat instead of stand. Lord knows what goblins were going to spring out of those urinals and offend you. So! All this had to go. Building management had converted one of the lady's rooms into a temporary men's room. Wow, what an experience. You walk into the ladies room and it's like you're staying a nice hotel, so clean, so neat, no chipped counter-tops, the towel dispensers looked brand new. It was disconcerting when I first walked in, where do I pee? Not in those toilets, those are too clean to pee in? And look! There are little cute hospitality dispensers everywhere. Everything's purple, pink and Easter Sunday-yellow unlike the stained navajo-white and tortured peach colored urinals we had in the men's room. In the ladies room, you want to sit in there are talk about other guys you work with, football, politics. It's no longer just a bathroom, it's a sanctuary or relaxation, a little order in the chaos that is work. It's no wonder women go in to their little sanctuaries two or three at a time. I imagine it's like going to a sports bar and having a beer.
Ok, you can tell that I was impressed by the ladies room. There's a rumor going around that the management is going to play on joke on everyone and convert the bathrooms back to what they used to be simply to see how many people they can confuse. I dont't think they will but it wold be fun to watch and listen to the occasional shrieks.
I'll document later how my time is going sitting in cube 2122 at SP3. So far it's pretty cool.
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