Friday, January 15, 2010

Lockdown

I got locked inside my office. For those of you with any phobias, I challenge you to face a night locked inside your place of work! It is the place from which you try all day to get away. The worst part was the idea that I suddenly was that guy, forgotten about, tucked in some office, doing my part to save the world and taken for granted enough that you get left behind. But I am way to loud to be forgotten about… so what dope do I now have to kill?!

So, to start with, I had my suspects. For those of you that have never worked inside a secure facility, everything we do will sound very foreign. I can’t bring cell phones in the office. Some stuff I can’t talk about without getting into trouble. We have to put stuff away at night. We are responsible for our own stuff. We check at the end of the day to make sure everyone took care of his or her stuff. We have log books about all our stuff. We have lots of stuff around to make sure that stuff stays where it is supposed to stay.

So on my way into work after the incident I checked the log of who signed that they closed up the room after checking all the stuff. I see the name of my Associate Chief Architect (ACA). Pretty much this guy is the third smartest guy I have ever met. When last I saw my ACA I was helping him and my Chief Engineer (CE) with some stuff. My CE is the second smartest guy I have ever met. These are the two that locked me inside a double redundant room with a triple redundant checklist.

I see my CE as he is walking down the hall as I walk into the office. This is how the rest of the conversation went:

CE: “Greg, thank you so much. That you gave me last night is just what we needed. You are a god!” (Yes, he really said those words.)
Greg : “Really?! So I guess you are in the habit of locking up your gods inside office buildings for the night? I’d hate to see how you treat your kids.”
CE: “What?”
Greg: “You… locked… me… in here… last night!”
CE: “You were still here?”
Greg: “Normally I would say ‘Clearly’ but apparently that would just be ironic in this case.”

At this point the ACA poked his head out of his office.

ACA: “Wait! You were still here?”
Greg:
ACA: “Oh crap! But you weren’t in your office!”
Greg: “A guy can’t go to the bathroom and make a phone call for five minutes?!
ACA: "How was I to know."
Greg: "Ok, I admit, I didn't put my name on the big white board of 'I'm still here' people. But considering your powers of observation I don't think it would have mattered. My computer was still here…”
CE: “But…”
Greg: “… My coat was still draped over my chair…"
ACA: “Well…”
Greg: “... My car keys were still on my desk! I think it was pretty clear I was still here!”
CE: “Well we didn’t look. Someone poked their head in while we were working and told us we were the last ones here.”
Greg: “Ok… even if you were SUPPOSED to just trust them… my office is four doors down the hall! The motion sensor on the lights hadn’t even timed out yet!”
ACA: “Ya know… I did think that was a little odd as I walked by…”
Greg: “YOU WALKED BY! I thought you didn’t look?!”
ACA: “We’ll you weren’t there…”
Greg: “My screen saver didn’t even have time to kick on!!”
ACA: “Well…”
Greg: “And even IF… you flaked out on my lights, my computer, my coat, my car keys… when you locked the room my cell phone was right next to yours on the shelf! Didn’t that give you pause!?”
ACA: “I guess it should have.”
Greg: “Ya think!”
CE: “So… what happened?”
Greg: “Before or after I set the alarm off? Before I set the alarm off I was sort of amused and hoping I could unsecure the room from the inside. After I set off the alarm I realized that I can’t unlock the doors from the inside! I had to unsecure the room, call our crack SWAT security team who had yet to notice that the alarms had gone off so they could shut them the hell up. They unsecured a door for me, which was on the other side of the building from the alarm panel so I had to run the hell from one side of the room to get out the door before the room secured again for this to start all over! Thanks for a fun night guys.”
CE: “Really we didn’t know you were here!”
Greg: “Let’s talk about that for a second… what walked past my open door, lights on, keys on the desk, jacket on the chair, office to tell you that you were alone? I need to find my next victim after I kill you two.”
ACA: “I don’t know, I was too busy working to look up.”
Greg: “Bull$&¡t. Stop protecting the stupid. You’re not helping them. I can find them without you. This delaying tactic will only give you time to warn them and thus make your own demise more painful!”
CE: “How long is it really gonna take you to get over this?”
Greg: “A while.”
CE: “I bought you dinner last week.”
Greg:
Greg: “Ok… less time for you. ACA… you’re screwed.”
The CE has since suddenly remembered the name of the mental reject that is next on my list. I’ll keep you all informed.