Today is a snow day at work/school. I still have to come to work, but it’s much quieter and I’m able to get caught up on a lot of things. Such as blogging about what my cubicle looks like.
It’s very pretty – we have carpet from the 60’s…hell, maybe earlier than that. It’s orange and brown and really nasty. It’s never vacuumed, it’s never dusted in here, and it’s never cleaned by our “custodians.” I have my own Lysol bleach wipes that I regularly sanitize my desk with, but I surely don’t haul my vacuum into work each week and clean it up.
The last few weeks, since it’s started getting colder out and our heat has been turned on….our heat has been full force. I think we have radiator type heat and water runs through the pipes. There is, I’m sure, a minimum of 4.2459 inches of dust built up on these heaters and when the heaters are heated, it heats up the dust and spreads it like… magical fairy dust. I’m sure my lungs are black, like a lifelong smoker’s, yet I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, all because of the air “quality” (I use that term very loosely) in here. So the heaters are on full blast and it’s been hotter than hell in here (mind you, I’m always very cold…I’ve always got my own personal heater AND a blanket). I’ve not turned on my personal heater and I’ve not used my blanket….because it’s been TOO warm in here. My coworker opens the windows in the morning because it’s so stuffy in here. But rest assured, because it’s so warm in here, the stupid air conditioning has been on regularly too. Yep, we have a too warm heater going during the work day, and the a/c comes on about every 10-15 minutes and cools it down. The heat is REALLY drying too. My hair has been a static-y mess the last few weeks. My coworker is getting shocked constantly while working on computers. My throat is dry and most days, I’ve chugged my whole Nalgene bottle….32 oz by the end of the work day!! Over the weekend, I purchased a “filter free warm mist humidifier.” It’s supposed to “help bring relief from sinus irritation and other effects of dry air.” I hope it makes me breathe a little easier, my hair a little less static, and my coworker get shocked less. I also hope I don’t get in trouble for having it. Actually, I don’t really care about that part.
(Part of my lovely cubicle. Sorry for the poor image, it's taken with my phone. That's my new fancy humidifier, with the lovely radiator heaters in the background. I'm storing it on a stolen filing cabinet. Notice the warped blinds on the right side of the picture? That's apparently because they were melting because they were resting on the radiator heaters. My coworker informed me of this, and raised them for me, so I wasn't responsible for catching this shithole on fire).
Don’t ask me how many times it’s leaked or flooded in here and the carpet has been pulled up, dried out, and then laid back nicely, like nothing happened. I wonder how much mold is growing underneath our floors. Actually, I don’t want to know.
We’re a public school system. We’ve been cutting our budget for the last 5 years, minimum. We’ve been eliminating positions because of budget cuts. The state has reneged money that we were supposed to have. We’ve take up fund raisers to help pay for necessities for our students. Is it really cost effective to have our heat running full force (hotter than what anyone would prefer) while simultaneously running the air conditioner??
I.THINK.NOT. Do we not have students and staff members who are making extreme sacrifices? We have WAY better ways to spend this money.
I will NOT miss the physical appearance and the ridiculously extreme heating and cooling that takes place year round. Is it July 2011 yet??
This turned into a rant that even I wasn’t expecting. Sorry about that!
