I didn't think today could be crazier than yesterday, but that shows what little faith I have in ComEd. Yesterday I awoke to grey skies. I didn't think much of this until about a half-hour later, when it was clear it had grown noticeably darker. I went out to the back porch and the wind whipped dust in my face; somewhere I heard a tinkling, as of something glass shattering, and responded by repositioning pots and taking the Old Man's ashtray inside. I stayed out there watching the tops of trees tossing until I felt the first drops.
It began pouring at about 8:10; the thunder didn't strike until a few moments later. At first the cat seemed blasé, but he eventually ended up in the closet again. I resolved to go in late if it was still pouring when I came out of my shower, but by then it had settled down to a sprinkle. The cloudburst had only lasted fifteen to twenty minutes. There were some downed branches on my street, but nothing big; from the shuttle I saw that one tree in Loyola Park had been felled, but other than a car stopped in the northbound lane it was an uneventful commute.
So I was in no way prepared to walk into work and find the lights out. At the urging of some coworkers, I went to the windows to look at the storm damage on the south side of the building; behind the police tape, I could see three large trees were uprooted, one was snapped, and another lost a branch bearing half its foliage. My mind then went to the basement; I grabbed a coworker and went down to look for water in the storage area our departments shared. Amazingly, it was bone dry despite large puddles in the access corridor. We ran into an engineer who explained that the water had come in through the ductwork and poured out of a mechanical closet.
So we were left with nothing to do but kill time until we were sent home. Another coworker took me to where we had some games squirreled away and I brought down Uno, Connect4, and Apples-to-Apples. We tried to break the last of these: at one point, I think we had a dozen people playing at once (including both my bosses). After a couple hours, we had very nearly run through every red card in the deck. (I had a respectable three green cards, but two others ended up with six each.)
Hopes swelled when one of the administrators came by around 11:30, but it was only to tell us that they'd refilled the emergency generators so they'd keep running past noon. It was another forty minutes or so before we were cleared to go home. I might've preferred a nap, but a friend offered me a ride and we ended up having tasty grilled meat at La Choza on Clark.
That was yesterday.
Today I checked the website first thing. After all, something like 800,000 people were without power throughout the are and ComEd had given us an estimate of 72 hours the day before. But everything was normal, so I was even more shocked to arrive at work and find dozens of people milling outside watching a policeman and a couple of fire marshals go inside. I quickly learned that power had been restored yesterday, but not until 3 p.m. And it had stayed up until five minutes before my shift; the fire alarm went off shortly after. After a bit, emergency services gave the all clear for staff to entre. Over the course of the morning I learned that the hilarity we'd overheard the previous morning was public services people playing charades; the current excitement was an office chair race down the administrative corridor.
Finally at 11 a.m., we were dismissed again. But going home didn't make sense for me, since I'm meeting Daddy Bishop for lunch in town at one. So after texting my new hire not to come in, I hung around chatting with work pals--until the lights came back on. Tentatively, we're rescheduled to open at 1:30, but the great part about being in the back office is that once you've been sent home, you're home.
I just know
monshu will tease me about getting two days off. But, lemme tell you, coming into work only to be sent home is nothing at all like a vacation.
It began pouring at about 8:10; the thunder didn't strike until a few moments later. At first the cat seemed blasé, but he eventually ended up in the closet again. I resolved to go in late if it was still pouring when I came out of my shower, but by then it had settled down to a sprinkle. The cloudburst had only lasted fifteen to twenty minutes. There were some downed branches on my street, but nothing big; from the shuttle I saw that one tree in Loyola Park had been felled, but other than a car stopped in the northbound lane it was an uneventful commute.
So I was in no way prepared to walk into work and find the lights out. At the urging of some coworkers, I went to the windows to look at the storm damage on the south side of the building; behind the police tape, I could see three large trees were uprooted, one was snapped, and another lost a branch bearing half its foliage. My mind then went to the basement; I grabbed a coworker and went down to look for water in the storage area our departments shared. Amazingly, it was bone dry despite large puddles in the access corridor. We ran into an engineer who explained that the water had come in through the ductwork and poured out of a mechanical closet.
So we were left with nothing to do but kill time until we were sent home. Another coworker took me to where we had some games squirreled away and I brought down Uno, Connect4, and Apples-to-Apples. We tried to break the last of these: at one point, I think we had a dozen people playing at once (including both my bosses). After a couple hours, we had very nearly run through every red card in the deck. (I had a respectable three green cards, but two others ended up with six each.)
Hopes swelled when one of the administrators came by around 11:30, but it was only to tell us that they'd refilled the emergency generators so they'd keep running past noon. It was another forty minutes or so before we were cleared to go home. I might've preferred a nap, but a friend offered me a ride and we ended up having tasty grilled meat at La Choza on Clark.
That was yesterday.
Today I checked the website first thing. After all, something like 800,000 people were without power throughout the are and ComEd had given us an estimate of 72 hours the day before. But everything was normal, so I was even more shocked to arrive at work and find dozens of people milling outside watching a policeman and a couple of fire marshals go inside. I quickly learned that power had been restored yesterday, but not until 3 p.m. And it had stayed up until five minutes before my shift; the fire alarm went off shortly after. After a bit, emergency services gave the all clear for staff to entre. Over the course of the morning I learned that the hilarity we'd overheard the previous morning was public services people playing charades; the current excitement was an office chair race down the administrative corridor.
Finally at 11 a.m., we were dismissed again. But going home didn't make sense for me, since I'm meeting Daddy Bishop for lunch in town at one. So after texting my new hire not to come in, I hung around chatting with work pals--until the lights came back on. Tentatively, we're rescheduled to open at 1:30, but the great part about being in the back office is that once you've been sent home, you're home.
I just know
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