I had a comment (which, annoyingly, appears to have disappeared in a Blogger glitch) from anna t about my recent lightbulb wars with the Facilities department in the New Building. She suggested joining a Union. In fact I think she suggested becoming a Union rep.
Which is good advice. I think we should all be Union members, and in fact I am - I have been a T&G member since I started working for this large multinational NGO about five and a half years ago. (As a trainee plumber I am also an NUS member, which is great for getting cheap cinema tickets, but I'm not sure that really counts).
And we do have a health and safety rep. And taking the matter up with her was going to be my next move. This would be a high risk strategy, as Facilities had told me they were 'progressing' the issue (which they are, but at what feels to me, with a headache, like a glacial pace).
Upping the ante in this way would risk lighting a red touchpaper. This isn't to say I wouldn't do it, but I am, after all, a manager with a sore head, not a sweatshop worker who isn't allowed to go to the toilet. So I adopted a more subtle approach. I talked to the Building Services Engineer.
He is a lovely guy, who is fond of me because I am interested in plumbing, and has taken me on a tour of the amazing pipes and boilers and tanks hidden in the roof space of the New Building. He isn't allowed to do anything that alters the spec of the building without authorisation from Facilities. This includes removing lightbulbs. But, he said, 'we could just move the lights over a bit'.
The ceiling is made of squares, and every fifth square one way and fourth square the other way is a light. He went and got a stepladder, poked a few panels out, and moved the light above my desk two squares over and three squares back. Then he moved the light over my colleague K's desk. Then he said 'see how you get on with that', and left me in a blissful pool of shadow.
I don't have a headache. My colleague K doesn't have a headache. The Building Services Engineer is in trouble. But he grinned at me this morning and said 'I've got broad shoulders, I can take it.' Life is sweet.
joella
2 comments:
Well I'm glad you got it sorted out without having to resort to industrial action of some sort.
The T&G is a great union. I'm going to keep this comment short and sweet and unpolitical and hope it's accepted. I don't think the web likes lefty feminists does it?
I wouldn't have you any other way, Steve. And I pretty much agree with you, though there are some depressing implications - at least until we can load the Assistant Facilities Manager onto Golgafrinchan Ark B.
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