There's something that has been irritating me for the past few weeks in my office. Not just me, but my colleagues who sit on the side of the corridor, because upon taking action, they told me that they have the same problem. However, none of them bothered to do a thing or even speak up until I raised the issue.
(No, these are not Singaporeans. I am the only Singaporean in my office, and I am the only one who cares enough to try to solve the problem. So much for Singaporeans being passive and apathetic?)
What is happening is cigarette smoke in the air-conditioned basement we are in. People have been smoking in the service shaft of the building, and leave the door open when they do that / after they do that. Not only is energy wasted because of the door left open (all the cold air escapes), but the entire corridor of the floor becomes filled with cigarette smoke. This happens at regular intervals in the day.
At first, I just popped over to the smokers and asked them to keep the door shut. The standard 'nod and agree' -- then they are back to their lazy behaviour.
Finally, I got irritated enough after getting a headache from the second-hand smoke and I went to the secretary of the office to ask if she could lock the door. No open door; no smoking. She said that she didn't have the key, and I should call security to do it.
Maybe the general office in charge of the building would have the key then. I went upstairs and the general office administrator told me that I should go downstairs to talk to the office in charge of our section of the building.
The administrative officer there told me that she could lock the door and lodge a complaint. Days passed...nothing happened. Meanwhile, cigarette smoke filled the corridor. I had to close the lab door, which made it hard for people to get in because the door had an autolock, so my colleagues would leave the lab door open again.
Then I decided to call the security office. One night, when the smokers came, I called security. Security promised to investigate. Nobody turned up. A few hours later, the smokers came again, and I called again. Security promised to investigate again, and patrol the place.
Days passed. No security. No locked door. Nada.
Hey. I tried. I approached all people of relevant authority in the case of this door. And nothing was done. So I will just keep the office door closed. This time I noticed that I could switch off the autolock on the door. Every time my colleagues left the door open, when I passed through, I closed it again.
It's just the way it's always been. The office door is kept open. I like it better closed now that people leave it closed (they got the hint). I sit next to the door, and the people who leave it close sit away from the door. Noise from the corridor doesn't disturb them. Noise from the corridor disturb me.
They were apathetic as to not bother about the cigarette smoke, so it turned out they were apathetic when I started closing the office door. Some even liked it -- one of them who is also close to the door.
Good thing (for me :P) we're going to move out in a few weeks. If we are staying longer I will certainly not let matters rest about the smokers.
There is this general malaise of inaction and bureaucracy about this place. I wonder if it is just here, or is it more widespread?
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Festering Rot I
Looks like my workstation has finally crashed. After spending the entire morning figuring how to retrieve information from the corrupted HDD, I found that the data I retrieved was the data that I absolutely did not need to retrieve, i.e. system files. Worthless. Good thing nothing important was lost, so I can slack around while installing a new system. It's a bit irritating because I had just made a minor breakthrough yesterday and was looking to moving on today.
The cause of this whole mess was a blackout. Now, I haven't had a blackout at home since forever, but it's the third time since I started work that the computer lab has had a blackout. Why there isn't a backup power supply in a computer lab in a modern commercial building (for god's sake) I do not know. Usually, the computer reboots up ok, does a disk check and fixes what it needs to. This time, unfortunately, the metadata in the hard disk was corrupted.
(This is partially my fault, since I shouldn't have used the file structure for my system the way I did. Now we know better, eh?)
Called the IT support, and had one of them come down. Case in frustration. The person obviously did not know what to do, and just rebooted the computer over and over again, then fiddled with the boot order. Minutes ticked by. I was trying to stop myself from telling him to go away so I can work on the computer. Finally, I couldn't control myself anymore and suggested that I will work on it myself.
Reminds me of the other day when those two IT fellows from their headquarters (there's the main IT resources department and our departmental IT support) marched down, demanded everyone booted to Windows, and changed the admin password on the virtual windows machine. After they left, the entire lab chuckled and loaded a new windows image.
Sometimes I feel so frustrated. All these people are hired and paid to provide certain services, and I don't see any. The good ones the are hired, get saddled with all sorts of junk duties, and eventually quit. Then you have the well-meaning fellows whom you cannot really blame because they are trying their best, but they're rather clueless (like that fellow from IT). Last of all you have the purposeful slackers. And everyone is mired in bureaucracy...
The cause of this whole mess was a blackout. Now, I haven't had a blackout at home since forever, but it's the third time since I started work that the computer lab has had a blackout. Why there isn't a backup power supply in a computer lab in a modern commercial building (for god's sake) I do not know. Usually, the computer reboots up ok, does a disk check and fixes what it needs to. This time, unfortunately, the metadata in the hard disk was corrupted.
(This is partially my fault, since I shouldn't have used the file structure for my system the way I did. Now we know better, eh?)
Called the IT support, and had one of them come down. Case in frustration. The person obviously did not know what to do, and just rebooted the computer over and over again, then fiddled with the boot order. Minutes ticked by. I was trying to stop myself from telling him to go away so I can work on the computer. Finally, I couldn't control myself anymore and suggested that I will work on it myself.
Reminds me of the other day when those two IT fellows from their headquarters (there's the main IT resources department and our departmental IT support) marched down, demanded everyone booted to Windows, and changed the admin password on the virtual windows machine. After they left, the entire lab chuckled and loaded a new windows image.
Sometimes I feel so frustrated. All these people are hired and paid to provide certain services, and I don't see any. The good ones the are hired, get saddled with all sorts of junk duties, and eventually quit. Then you have the well-meaning fellows whom you cannot really blame because they are trying their best, but they're rather clueless (like that fellow from IT). Last of all you have the purposeful slackers. And everyone is mired in bureaucracy...