Workplace FAIL

A friend of mine recently introduced me to failblog.org, which is basically a website that celebrates, through pictures and video, the idiocy of others. Oh, let’s put it more gently: the…comic, and sometimes EPIC, failures of others. (There. That’s so I don’t sound like TOO much of cynical misanthrope. I love my fellow humans. I really do. But part of that love includes laughing at them. Is that so bad? Is it??)

Right.

Well, let me share with you all a REAL life epic workplace fail that happened to moi. We all know the economy is bad. Well, Orem City has had to make some cutbacks in response, one of which includes reducing janitorial services to almost nothing. As of this week, city staff is responsible for the cleaning of everything in the city center and library EXCEPT the bathrooms. (Hallelujah.) This means that in addition to regular opening and closing procedures (balancing tills, booting up computers, etc.) we also now have a whole litany of other little nitty-gritty tasks to complete. Vacuuming, sanitizing drinking fountains, washing support pillars, emptying garbage cans… etc.

The mezzanine of the children’s wing in the library is a pretty pleasant place (ugh. Alliteration.) a pretty pleasant place to work. Vaulted ceiling, windows, panoramic views of both Timpanogos and Cascade Mountains, and a nice view of the art glass window on the floor below… not bad, eh? Fortunately, I will be working there a lot during the next few months. I was working there Wednesday night with P, the Childrens Librarian when closing time rolled around and we began to make the janitorial rounds.

Note: About a month ago, the library staff all sat down and brainstormed ways to cut back spending and one of the things we all decided to do was turn off the lights at night. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, not really, because up until a week ago, the janitorial staff (the now notoriously ABSENT janitorial staff) would come in at night and clean. Now that they no longer come…well, you get it.

So, P and I are upstairs cleaning, and we’re just about done, when suddenly…

I wish there was some sound, some onomatopoeia, for being plunged into the inky darkness that is a darkened library. Oh, wait. There is. It sounds like this: HEEEEEEYYYYYY!!!! Or if P and I had been any fainter of heart…AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!…. You get the point. Whoever had been working downstairs finished, and—dutifully heeding the counsel of our library director—turned off the lights. Upstairs and down. So what’s the big deal? You’re asking. Why not just…turn ‘em back on? Well, they are the big, halogen (or whatever) gymnasium-type lights that take like TEN MINUTES to warm up and turn on again. Even if they’ve just been turned off.

So the end of the story is this: P and I drop whatever we were doing, find our stuff in the dark and basically FEEL our way downstairs to where there are still some lights on. Needless to say, P was incensed and gave everyone downstairs an earful.

Me? I thought it was kind of hilarious. However. I’m really, really happy we weren’t in the dungeon basement somewhere.

An effort to save money one way pretty much precluded the possibility of saving money in another. EPIC FAIL!