Newbies

Remember yesterday and the mysterious smell of burning rubber? Today there was an email:

I just wanted to inform you that due to a problem which occurred yesterday with the a/c system, there will be no air conditioning available today in the Bldg. I am trying to locate parts to repair the system ASAP. I apologize for any inconvenience and will inform you as soon as unit is repaired and running.

Ah ha. The little “problem” we spent yesterday inhaling. They didn’t care to fill us into what specifically the problem was and what exactly we spent the day inhaling - I and the rest of the building are hoping it wasn’t a particularly carcinogenic problem the A/C was having. I’m sure if it was a real issue they would let us know - On the twelve of never or three days after the statue of limitations runs out, which ever is longer. Bastards.

So.

We have no air. Which would be fine, my side of the building is always cold and if it does get too warm I can just not move around much, that can be arranged. So of course on this day without A/C my long ordered replacement cabinets arrive. Of course they do! And without warning! No heads up, no hint no nothing. “Oh, by the way, five six foot cabinets are here for you”. Great. I am so not ready for new cabinets, because now I have to empty out the broken cabinets, pry the charts out, thin the charts stack them up in order and then find help to remove the existing broken cabinet out of my office and replace it with a not yet broken cabinet. Five times. This is hot and sweaty work. The moving of the cabinets from point A to point B is unpleasant as well as unfun. It is hard to manhandle cabinets into place in dress shoes. We have one in place and I am all ready warmer than I would like and among the many things I am not paid enough to do, I am not paid enough to sweat.

There is going to be a mild problem with the new cabinets. They are a very small amount more wide then the existing cabinets they are here to replace. This was not a problem with cabinet number one, as it was at the end of row and moving it in was not a problem. The problem is going to be when we start moving down the list of cabinets that need to be replaced. They will not just slide into place. They won’t fit into the space provided. All the existing cabinets will need to be shifted down X number of inches to make room for the newbie’s and that simply isn’t going to happen, these things are very large and heavy and when full are practically forces of nature and they will not be moved. Not by me. Not by anyone in this office. It is going to be a problem. Not only are they too heavy to move most of them are rather severely warped ( and these are the cabinets that are not so broken that they need replacing) and moving them would cause even more warpage and more issues for me. Right now a majority of them still open and close properly and I would like them to remain in their existing not all that broken state for as long as possible and thus moving them is out of the question.

So. What to do. I don’t know. The size issue only just now occurred to me as I was writing this that my supervisor made some remark about them being a little wider and so they would fit more charts and files, which they do, quite nicely. But. Where was Henry Ford when they were designing filing cabinets?