So I went to work last Monday as usual. It was just a regular Monday. I actually got a lot done and left on time. Since it was such a productive day, I brought home only a few things and locked up the remainder of my work – which is odd for me. I also left my favorite coffee cup and my iPod cord on my desk. (Aside: my iPod will be four years old this Christmas. I still love it, but wow does it look like a brick.)
On Tuesday I got up a usual, beat Dave into the bathroom, and was thinking I might actually get to work early. Just at that moment when it would no longer be possible for me to quickly leave the bathroom to answer the phone, the phone rang. It was 6:00 am on the button.
While it was not the middle of the night, a 6:00 am call still has that "who died?" kind of ring to it.
Dave nor I made it to the phone in time. The machine picked up and revealed the voice of my boss. My boss? Why would my boss call me at 6:00 am?
"Kate," he said, "there's been a fire at the library."
I stretched out my arm to open the door to better hear the message. Dave made it into the hallway and picked up the phone.
There was a small fire in the basement of the library where I work. It was late in the evening, no one was hurt. The fire was in the machine room, no books were burnt. However, the damage from fire, soot, and smoke necessitated closing the library for the day in order to investigate the fire, determine the damage to and safety of the building, etc. My boss seemed to think the building would also be closed on Wednesday. Sweet. Two snow days.
I didn't think much of it until I had to prepare to teach on Wednesday morning. Right. Monday was productive so I left things at work. Luckily, I back up everything on my work computer daily onto my trusty jump drive. So, while I don't have my binder or my textbooks, I do have the copies of the latest non-textbook readings and everything on the jump.
On Wednesday, I updated my clueless students and gave them the news I had – the library would be closed until next Monday at least. Therefore, my office hours were canceled, my phone is out of commission, we would have to communicate via email and set up meetings at another location.
My boss had told me that we could go over to the public safety office in order to be let into the office to grab any essentials. I went over to public safety – no dice. Turns out there is a lot more smoke damage to the building than they had realized. Turns out the whole place stinks. A lot. Oh, and there might be high levels of PCB or other scary toxins in the building. It's going to take a while to clean the whole building and we probably won't be back in our office until January.
I won't bore you with all the particulars, but now that I've had time to think about it, it really kind of sucks that I can't get back to my desk. Our office is getting settled into temporary digs in another building on campus. I think we actually have two phone lines now. I've already made a list of things that must happen before the end of the semester but that are now a bit screwed because I can't get into our office.
These last few weeks of the semester are going to be interesting.
And hey! It snowed last night, so now calling them snow days is a little easier to do.
One last comment -- the library administrative types have done a spectacular job maintaining communication with the campus community and providing library services to students and faculty at this crucial point in the semester.
