Construction

Today marks the beginning of a month-long construction project in the hallway right outside my office door. I can see them moving equipment into place already and I'm getting nervous. When they're set up, the only access to my office will be through the stairwell and through the construction zone (through possibly some sort of dust containment zone). Fantastic.

The plan is to install fire doors that will automatically close when smoke is detected. This is a long delayed and very important project given the current state of fire safety in this building. For one, all the fire doors to the stairwell are continuously propped open -- i.e., not so useful in a fire. But that's the kind of situation you find in buildings everywhere. The far more entertaining (and blogworthy) situation is that there are no fire alarms. Period. There is one button in the stairwell on the third floor. I have no idea what it does. What it doesn't do is set off audible alarms in the building to warn people. I know this because there are no speakers anywhere. Instead, on every floor there is a big locked box (opened by any building key). Inside this box is ... a megaphone. That's right, a megaphone. Hilarious.