workplace woes

When this blog started - very, very nearly fifteen years ago, but we'll celebrate when the time comes - it was punctuated with laments about the crumbling state of Murray Hall, location of the Rutgers English Department, and of the house on Union Street where I had my office.  I just checked on Google Street View, and surprisingly it's still standing - the walls seemed to sag and crumble a bit more every semester.

But Taper Hall proves to be nothing to write home about.  A couple of weeks ago, the company charged with mending the bathrooms - or rather, taking asbestos out of them, and other such tasks - managed to flood two and a half floors (at one end of the building) because they didn't follow protocols.  It's ... being cleared up.  We're lucky, in departmental terms, that our offices weren't affected by water - but plenty were, and aren't habitable.  And all the same, we can't access one corridor of offices, including the department office - and that means no xeroxing, say (and yes, it's the start of the semester). I take it this van (which ominously says, among other things, "National Disaster Team") is sorting out the damaged HVAC system - and next week we should learn when normal operations may be resumed.  Or not.  I made a semi-illicit dive into the department office, because I really needed that cup of coffee, and it smelt very weird indeed.