Sunday, February 21, 2010

Monday through Friday

I came in early today (Sunday) to get some work done in order to spend the afternoon with my family. There's a stack of stuff on my desk and Tuesday's lecture is only in my head. I work in a new building, which has had some issues with the times it is locked - seemingly random and often not on weekends. This weekend it was locked, so I swiped my card to get access. Nothing. I tried all 5 card readers around the building. Nada.

Pissed off that I couldn't get into my office, I called security and was told that my building was not on "the list" to be open this weekend. I explained my situation and after a few "yeah, buts", the officer begrudgingly sent a security officer to let me in. I picked a spot of the building that was least windlashed and waited.

While waiting, I saw a grad student from another department approach the building from another side. I thought about telling the grad student about the card reader issues, but they were far enough away that I would have had to yell and this was not a student I knew at all. I figured they would get to the door, realize the issue and approach the door I was at. In a classic "Midvale School for the Gifted" moment, the student walked up to the one set of doors that has no card swipe, opened one and walked in. Feeling like a dumbass for making the leap of logic that all of the doors would be locked, especially the ones without the card readers, I stood in the cold wondering whether to go inside or wait for the security officer outside.

I decided on going in and calling the security office to keep the officer from coming down but he had already arrived and met me not a minute later. I explained how I got in and he let me know that the building is locked to everyone on the weekends because they don't expect that we work overtime. "You work Monday through Friday" he explained.

Oh, officer, wouldn't that be nice? There wasn't much point in explaining the hours I actually work, but I'm going to have to make sure that it's clear there needs to be a way for those with card access to the building to get in "after hours".

11 comments:

  1. Ha, ha! Monday through Friday job - love it! I'm home sick and still working on a paper this weekend!

    I also love that the non-card-reader door was left unlocked even though the building was supposed to be closed...sounds like how our "beautiful new building" operates. Old things, even buildings, just work better.

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  2. I enjoy the blog being TT as well. But I can't help thinking maybe you should finish up and get back to the family instead of fiddling with this blog. Then you wouldn't have to stand out in the cold on Sunday.

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  3. Our admins cannot access their offices (which adjoin the labs) after 5 p or on weekends... b/c you know there's never a push to get a grant out on time that requires them to work late. Postdocs, on the other hand, have no trouble whatsoever getting in.

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  4. I spent a good 5 minutes the other day swearing at the card reader wondering why it wouldn't let me into my building before realizing I was swiping my credit card instead of my ID....

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  5. I've had this experience before. Once, they added card reader access to our building, but forgot to turn on the card readers. Needless to say, there were a lot of unhappy people!

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  6. MH: sounds like something I would do...

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  7. I have a hard key override that I got from the building manager. This kind of crap happens too often.

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  8. Worst thing I discovered a while ago was that they lock all the gates except the front one (our lab buildings are enclosed in lager-ish 'sites' with a wall around) after 6pm! I've had to scramble over the wall a few times, when I can't be bothered to walk all the way round the building. :p

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  9. LOL @ MadHatter!

    After a long day at work, I've been known to wave my work access card at the lock on my front door when I get home...

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  10. Hmm. I think I need one of those Monday through Friday jobs. Where can I get one of those?

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