samedi, septembre 04, 2004 UPDATED - KillMeNow #7 and #8 - Lift and Ass-kisser Yesterday, a student got stuck in a lift.He got out. Amen. More backstory >> Time: Event -0:03 My colleagues and I took a 2 hour lunch break on Friday (TGIF), and got back at around 3pm. We got into the lift, and went our separate ways in the building. Time: Event +0:01 I cart my shopping booty to my desk and sit down. The next thing I know, frantic knocking (AGAIN?!) at my door. "SOMEONE IS STUCK IN THE LIFT!" my colleague fair shouts at me. Time: Event +0:02-+0:05 We take off in a sprint to the first floor, to see if turning the lift key works. It doesn't. We call up Sigma Elevators, who installed and maintain the elevator. My colleague (colleague 1) gives my handphone number, and we both look at each other and realise that I do not have my handphone with me. I run upstairs again to get my handphone, and grab the numbers for the whole company's facilities management team off my pinup board. I go outside, and colleague 2 asks me if I have any funky screwdrivers, because we can get the lift door open if I do. The screwdriver needs to be triangular in shape. Obviously, I don't. BECAUSE NOBODY GIVES ME A BUDGET TO BUY ANYTHING USEFUL, LIKE SCREWDRIVERS AND NAILS AND A POWER DRILL, WHICH I REALLY NEED IN THE COURSE OF MY WORK. I call the management team, and they say that they'll send someone down immediately to help. I run back into my office, and grab my OWN tools, which I carted from my own toolbox AT HOME, and try to fiddle about with the elevator. It obviously doesn't work, and I know I didn't do any damage to anything because nothing fit in any crevice. Joy. Time: Event +0:05-+0:08 I run to the front desk to see what's happening with my colleagues, and Colleague 2 grabs the walkie-talkies we have for productions and thrusts one in my hand. "For easier communication," she says. Then I notice this guy standing in front of the counter. Oh bugger and blast, it's the Associate Director. He just has to be here NOW?! I think to myself. He asks a few suitably stupid questions like "how is the student?" How should I know?! "I'm going to find out now," I say, as I run awaaaaaaay from him. Unfortunately, he follows. Oh well. At least I tried. Time: Event +0:08-+0:13 With the AD behind my back, I shout to the student to ask him if the fan is working, and if the lights are switched on, totally defying the standing order to speak to all students in English. "Now they are," he replies in Chinese. "When are the people coming?" "I don't know, soon, I think. They said they would come immediately, but I don't know exactly when," is my pathetic reply. I ask him if he's alright for now, and he replies in the affirmative. "I hope they come soon," is the boy's plaintive sigh. I try the key again, and ask my colleague to check if there's any other key available in the key press box. I know for a fact that no such key exists because I just spent the last week of my life sorting through the junk that's hanging inside, but well, just for the AD's ear's sake, I had to ask. She replies that no, we don't have anything, and she can't search for anything now because she's handling something else. (Unbeknownst to me, there was another crisis taking place elsewhere, involving a missing timesheet.) Time: Event +0:13 Repairman is here! Hurrah! Not. He tries his keys. Door won't open. We climb up and down with him, and he tries to open the lift door on levels 1 and 2, to no avail. He needs access to the motor room, which is on the roof. I don't have the key because PEOPLE DON'T GIVE ME ESSENTIAL KEYS, THEY LIKE TO KEEP THE POWER ALL TO THEMSELVES. So we have to wait for his colleague to arrive. I call the company facilities management team to tell them that I need the key, and they say OK, and ask if the student has pressed the telephone button, to ask for assistance. I shout this to the student, and then tell the facilities management team to BRING THE DAMNED KEY DOWN NOW. By this time, the AD is feeling rather left-out. So much communication going around in front of him by this mere gurl, walkie-talkies, handphones, lift-telephones, shouting to students, and he doesn't get to make a single call? So he mutters, "I think the Deputy Director should know about this," and happily dials a number. So the DD's on his way down. I walk away to a discreet place and walkie-talkie my colleagues the warning. My security guard bursts into the emergency staircase where I am, and brings along with him... another security guard? "What are you doing here?" I ask this guy. "I dunno, they ask me to come one," he tells me in a mat accent. "Who ask you to come one?" "The facilities management team. They said you call them." Right. I tell them that I have a student trapped in a lift, and I need help, and they send me a security guard?! Nincompoops. I send him back to his original station (though not before asking him if he had any keys, or tools, or knowledge about anything regarding lifts and rescues.) Time: Event +0:20 The other repairman is here! So they climb up and down and fix whatever it is. The DD had arrived by now, the door is popped, and student clambers out, very relieved. He thanks me, and thanks the AD and DD (what the heck for? I think, but I obviously let it slide.) Time: Event +3:00 (approximate) My director pays the building a visit, and he said that (thank God for amazing matters!) the AD had said that I handled the whole crisis very well. This gratifies me a little. But too little too late! ASS KISSER It's stuff like this that my life is now made up of. Very exciting, but very tiring. Ordinarily, I think I would enjoy it, but I really hate not getting understanding of what I do from the management. To them, it's just 20 minutes - why can't you do more work after that? they would ask. Because it was a very f***ing tiring 20 minutes, that's why, b*tch. To top it all off, someone else is attaching his mouth to the newly-installed DD's ass, and sucking very hard. That's okay, I love seeing a freak-show, but when the freak-show brazenly STEALS MY WORK and PASSES IT OFF AS HIS OWN, oh man. He's talking to the DD, and passing him some policies that I wrote, and not telling the DD that I did it. So obviously, the DD would think that he was the one who did it, right? Rules and regulations concerning the use of the building come under my jurisdiction, but no, this bastard just comes in, takes my work, and takes over, like he's done all this crawling through blood and shit all the time. I thought about this a little, and I think it's a little funny that I still want to own this stuff that I don't like doing. But my colleague pointed out to me that although it wasn't anything I wanted to do, I still did it, and it's my work regardless - or more so, since I didn't like doing it in the first place. So when this guy comes and takes credit for running the entire building, like he has any clue, oh man. That just takes the cake. Why are these two posts together? Because I'm leaving soon, I shouldn't bother, right? But it really stings my pride when the DD comes to the building which you're supposed to be running, and speaks to EVERYONE ELSE but you, because he doesn't know that you're the one in charge of every f***ing little thing there, and he doesn't know any better. And when he speaks to you, he talks down, like I don't know what's going on in the building. BITE ME. Oh, and another push factor to get out: my language is seriously deteriorating in this job. I have not cursed so much, EVER. I have used f*** in so many new permutations, I think I've discovered some new uses of the word. Need to get out. Soon. (Pull factor though - my bank statement just came in, and I have a -$9 deficit this month, thanks to my GRE and TOEFL $500+ expenditure. Yikes.) [UPDATED - KillMeNow #7 and #8 - Lift and Ass-kisser] |
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