Last Sunday at work was unexpectedly exciting in all the ways you wouldn't want it to be. Normally when I arrive at work, the museum worker has already arrived and unlocked everything. Not so on Sunday. One of the first things I noticed is that for the first time, the place was locked up tighter than a drum, which meant I needed to go through and disarm the alarms, something I've never done on my own before. Particularly since the absolute first, impossible to miss thing I had noticed is that one of the basement alarms was going off before I even opened the door. Eep.
I couldn't see any obvious reason for it to be going off, like fire erupting from the roof or a gentleman cat burglar making his elegant way through the galleries, perhaps stopping in the library to steal an elegant book of classic poetry to contemplate while he made off with our stuffed alligator. What made the alarm quite puzzling is that I discovered that it wasn't even armed, which meant it shouldn't have been going off at all. Even more puzzling was when I turned it off, then it started again five minutes later, and then when I turned it off, the other basement alarm started going off. And then fifteen minutes later the upstairs alarm went off.
That's how I spent the next merry hour, turning off alarms whack-a-mole style while frantically calling the alarm company who didn't have a clue. They weren't even receiving alarms from us on their end. Eventually the museum worker got his car started and showed up, and then my boss showed up, and we figured out it was all because of a phone line that had gone down. It was nervewracking but ultimately no big deal.
But if I had to chose a way to spend my first hour spent alone in the museum ever? It would definitely not involve LOUD CLANGING ALARMS randomly going off every ten minutes.
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