{"id":153,"date":"2008-07-15T07:59:59","date_gmt":"2008-07-15T12:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=153"},"modified":"2018-10-31T12:38:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T16:38:06","slug":"office-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=153","title":{"rendered":"Office Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been slowly dismantling the bathroom.\u00a0 A long ago (and failed) high school project involved riding the Metro late at night with a battery powered screwdriver and just going nuts on the train cars.\u00a0 But this required an empty car and plenty of time, so it just got old after a while.\u00a0 Running from car to car, giggling, acting suspicious.\u00a0 It was time better spent in front of the TV watching Magnum PI<\/em>.
\n
\nUnscrewing all the screws in the bathroom is a far more leisurely activity.\u00a0 In your own time, you can loosen every screw in the stall.\u00a0 I\u2019m working a \u201ccompressed\u201d schedule for the next few weeks, which means I get a day off every two weeks and make up the hours by coming in early the rest of the time.\u00a0 So I\u2019ll have plenty of lonely morning time to step up my bathroom project.\u00a0 Maybe remove all the mirrors or something.\u00a0 I tend to leave IOU\u2019s when I do something like that.\u00a0 A few years ago, I took all the fire extinguishers on my floor and hid them in the long disused filing cabinets next to an abandoned office.\u00a0 I left an IOU with a little smiley face in each of the empty holders.\u00a0 Of course I didn\u2019t sign my name, but I did come out to watch the building services people try to puzzle it out.\u00a0 It took them nine months to notice that the extinguishers were missing in the first place.\u00a0 Then a pack of them, all wearing their little uniform overalls, ran from holder to holder collecting the IOU\u2019s.\u00a0 In the lobby, they scratched their heads, stared at my little printouts, scratched their heads some more, then collectively shrugged and returned to their dungeon.\u00a0 The next day, the extinguishers were replaced.\u00a0 That evening, after everyone had left, I took all of the ones I\u2019d hidden and put them back.<\/p>\n

I wish I was around for the two extinguishers at every station freak out.\u00a0 I kept my eye open, months passed, and nobody seemed to notice.\u00a0 Then, one morning, the extra extinguishers were gone.\u00a0 Did building services take them away?\u00a0 Is someone else copying me?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been using my Swiss Army knife for the bathroom, though some of the screws have been giving me a hard time.\u00a0 These days, though, I like the challenge.\u00a0 If I work at the screws every day then, slowly, they\u2019ll all bend to my will.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how far I\u2019m going to take it\u2026 Can I strip the bathroom of everything except the toilets and sinks?\u00a0 Or maybe I should just remove the doors to the stalls and leave a long winded note about how it\u2019s been done by the CEO \u201cfor your protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Passive shenanigans seem to work just fine for me.\u00a0 My aggression is focused on the security door.\u00a0 A few years ago, our security doors were upgraded.\u00a0 Of course, the fancier the security, the more temperamental it is.\u00a0 I found that swinging the heavy glass doors out as far as they\u2019ll go, then slamming them shut is a great way to break the little sensors that lock them.\u00a0 Whenever the doors break, it takes months for building services to repair them.<\/p>\n

It takes weeks of abuse to break the locks, though.\u00a0 I\u2019ve fallen into a routine where I kick the doors open, then swing them closed.\u00a0 Each time I come back, I yank viciously on them instead of using my key fob.\u00a0 Eventually, they just give way and never lock again.<\/p>\n

My co-workers rarely notice this.\u00a0 Even with the doors sitting ajar and clearly not connecting with the lock mechanism, they blindly use their key fob to enter.\u00a0 Eventually, our director does take notice and sends around a long email apologizing for the breach in security and promising repairs.<\/p>\n

I like to watch my co-workers when the doors are broken.\u00a0 I\u2019ll sit at the sickly little computer intended for visitors and stare wondrously at these prisoners of conformity and habit.\u00a0 Their dull, glazed eyes as they uselessly go through the entrance ritual.\u00a0 I once asked a few of them \u2013 why do that if the doors are broken?\u00a0 They all replied:\u00a0 Because it\u2019s what I always do.<\/p>\n

People make me sad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been slowly dismantling the bathroom.\u00a0 A long ago (and failed) high school project involved riding the Metro late at night with a battery powered screwdriver and just going nuts on the train cars.\u00a0 But this required an empty car …<\/p>\n

Office Projects<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[400],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wage-slave","tag-wage-slave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1112,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/1112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}