Last look at the place
June 7th 2007 09:36
It's more obvious in the office I'm in now that there's no lining on any of the walls: I can put my hand out and feel the cold of concrete (painted a utility yellow). On the wall I look at the concrete hasn't been properly finished off, perhaps because at some point stairs have been put in. Or maybe the contractor was just lazy.
There's a large glassed in box on the wall containing a snake-pit of wires. Touch this with less than delicacy, and a number of the electrical functions round the place will cease. Under the stairs is a tiny cupboard – you have to bend over to get into it – where someone from another office altogether keeps certain records.
At intervals of two to three metres girders supporting the upstairs stick out of the wall. Because everything is concrete, (and not tidy concrete blocks, mind you) all the fittings are visible: pipes for electricals, bolts in the wall. I've just noticed that the wall beyond the area under the stairwell is actually made of concrete blocks. There you go. You have to stop and look to see these things.
The carpet in the corridor (dark blue) is a different colour to the carpets in the offices (light fawn), mainly because the men walking from the tea-room first thing in the morning, with their wake-up cup of coffee, left so many spill marks that a lighter colour wouldn't hide the marks.
The heater in the room can't be used because it's stuck partly under a desk, and would probably set the drawers on fire eventually. The desks themselves (apart from mine, which is really just a spare surface to place things on – when I'm not here) have those carpet-covered stomach-high 'walls' opposite the sitter's face. If they're like the walls beside the desk I was in previously, they're almost impossible to get a pin in, though the guys in this room seem to have managed.
Down the other end of the building, the men's toilets remain as unfinished as the day I arrived – four months ago. Work on them is in the pipeline. More cannot be said. Still the urinal and the w.c. are usable, as are the basins. But the showers have builder's rubbish in them, the coat rail came out of the first half of the last century, and the lockers are so knocked around the doors mostly won't open. The stuff I cleaned out of there on the days when I had no office work to do has long gone to the tip (hopefully there wasn't anything important amongst what I threw out) and the stuff I didn't throw out because it needed to be kept for auditors (do auditors ever look at such things?) is still exactly where I left it. The store cupboard upstairs hasn't been touched since I did a bit of cleaning up there three months ago. Still, it is tidier than it was when I started, and you can get in the door.
Last day today. And some friendly goodbyes - and a bottle of wine from my office compatriot. What a surprise! No more work. A sleep-in tomorrow - well, a lie-in, since sleep is probably impossible in a house full of children.
There's a large glassed in box on the wall containing a snake-pit of wires. Touch this with less than delicacy, and a number of the electrical functions round the place will cease. Under the stairs is a tiny cupboard – you have to bend over to get into it – where someone from another office altogether keeps certain records.
At intervals of two to three metres girders supporting the upstairs stick out of the wall. Because everything is concrete, (and not tidy concrete blocks, mind you) all the fittings are visible: pipes for electricals, bolts in the wall. I've just noticed that the wall beyond the area under the stairwell is actually made of concrete blocks. There you go. You have to stop and look to see these things.
The carpet in the corridor (dark blue) is a different colour to the carpets in the offices (light fawn), mainly because the men walking from the tea-room first thing in the morning, with their wake-up cup of coffee, left so many spill marks that a lighter colour wouldn't hide the marks.
The heater in the room can't be used because it's stuck partly under a desk, and would probably set the drawers on fire eventually. The desks themselves (apart from mine, which is really just a spare surface to place things on – when I'm not here) have those carpet-covered stomach-high 'walls' opposite the sitter's face. If they're like the walls beside the desk I was in previously, they're almost impossible to get a pin in, though the guys in this room seem to have managed.
Down the other end of the building, the men's toilets remain as unfinished as the day I arrived – four months ago. Work on them is in the pipeline. More cannot be said. Still the urinal and the w.c. are usable, as are the basins. But the showers have builder's rubbish in them, the coat rail came out of the first half of the last century, and the lockers are so knocked around the doors mostly won't open. The stuff I cleaned out of there on the days when I had no office work to do has long gone to the tip (hopefully there wasn't anything important amongst what I threw out) and the stuff I didn't throw out because it needed to be kept for auditors (do auditors ever look at such things?) is still exactly where I left it. The store cupboard upstairs hasn't been touched since I did a bit of cleaning up there three months ago. Still, it is tidier than it was when I started, and you can get in the door.
Last day today. And some friendly goodbyes - and a bottle of wine from my office compatriot. What a surprise! No more work. A sleep-in tomorrow - well, a lie-in, since sleep is probably impossible in a house full of children.
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