. . . is being a Fire Marshall.
At 6am. Which is quite a badge of distinction, because it means I was the first person down at reception when the fire alarm went off. If that wasn't exciting enough, they couldn't figure out what caused it except that the electricity was out in about half the building.
Which made opening reception really fun because there were no lights, no computers, and it took us 15 minutes to find the funny cranky handle gadget to manually open the shutter.
But at least we had a door to get in Reception to open the shutter manually. The genius who designed the shutter to the wash-up room installed it with the manual winch on the INSIDE (and there is no other access to the room). So, its paper plates and forks today.
To go along with the cold sandwiches because the kitchen ran out of gas to fire the stoves and ovens. And they still don't really know what caused the power to go out (there is flooding in two rooms as well, which may have something to do with it). Because of this horrendous storm that took out half of London's transportation system, we didn't get an electrician here until after noon. As I type, the power still isn't back on in half the building (the important half, unfortunately - reception, kitchen, boilers . . .)
To top it off, this poor new resident arrived today from the States - with over 20 bags. Literally, I have never seen one student bring so much stuff. How on earth she will fit it all into a single room, I have no idea. But get this - her room is on the 5th and final floor and of course, today is the one day in the four months I've been here when the lift has been down and her family is helping her carry each one of those 20 bags up 6 flights of stairs.
So, if you think of us across the pond, please pray for the poor kitchen team workers and for Brian (head of Maintenance) that God will bless their work today.
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2 comments:
!!!
(You should definitely expand the your use of the "Reasons to use a torch" label!)
Thank you, I rather liked that label - considering that here a "torch" is a flashlight. But I'm pretty sure that this day made several people long to brandish their own stick of fire.
Side note, the electricity was finally repaired at about 5pm. Now the community is waiting with baited breath for the boilers to heat up the water enough for showers (well, that is, those who weren't smart enough to take a shower right after the fire alarm instead of going back to sleep :)
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