caffienekitty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
caffienekitty) wrote2008-04-11 11:37 pm
caffienekitty) wrote2008-04-11 11:37 pm
Entry tags:
... I have no idea what to put for the subject of this.
Okay. Wow.
So... this is an extremely long and freaky 'no crap, there I was,' post.
What an interesting night I've had tonight...
Electrical fault, ghost, to-may-to, to-mah-to...
So, at about 6:30, when the clients are all locked out and we can actually get some work done, I'm in one of my boss's (let's call him Boss2 for convenience) offices doing some mind-numbing incredibly important fiddly detail-oriented crap that can only be done on Boss2's station when one of the overhead lights in his office starts flickering. Exactly 'in-bound demon approaching' style.
I look up and grin because hey, it's cool, and it's a bit of a giggle on a Friday afternoon of mind-numbing drudgery.
Then the rest of the lights in the ceiling start to flicker.
I laugh nervously and wonder if one of the other people still in the building is goofing around. Then the lights slowly flicker out and die. Computer stays on though. So not a power failure or a brown out. I stare at the ceiling and laugh some more, vacillating between "OMG! Ghost!" and "Great, how am I supposed to get the two hours of fiddly detail crap done in the dark." I settle for "Hunh," with strong overtones of the latter.
Poke my head out Boss2's door, going "Hey. The lights went out." Rest of floor is fine and has lights and computers and all the joys of the modern office except for one other person whose office is pretty much in the diagonally opposite corner to Boss2's office. His lights have gone out too.
There is vague muttering among Boss1 and co-workers of calling Boss2, or finding the upstairs breaker panel and randomly flipping switches. I say "Um, no" to the second option and someone says something about mentioning it to Boss2 later, Boss2 being, among many other things, the official poker of buttons and flipper of switches in cases like these.
Everyone basically shrugs and troops back into their offices. I head back, flip off light switch in Boss2's office and continue fiddling with the fiddly detail-oriented crap, hoping to finish in Boss2's office before losing the light from the window. Eyestrain ensues.
A while later, there is a huzzah from the office across the floor; his lights have come back on. Hooray! I go turn Boss2's lights back on and they indeed work. For about five minutes, before expiring in a 'grab the salt-gun, we got company!' sort of way. Sigh. Flip light switch back off.
Co-worker in other office decides that's enough fun for one day and leaves, rest of co-workers dribble out, leaving me and Boss1. Random workstuff later, Boss1 leaves, saying she'll talk to Boss2 about it in the morning. Insert standard exchanging of info regarding tomorrow's work day with Boss1, and she heads down the stairs leaving me in Boss2's dark office, fighting with the fiddly crap.
Less than a minute later, there is a shout from downstairs. I figure she's forgotten her keys and needs locked out or something. I holler down an erudite "What?". She shouts back up that she thinks she's found the problem with the lights and it might be dangerous.
Yay, danger.
I head down expecting to see sparks flying out of one of the many copy machines and printers, get downstairs and look at what's alarmed her. The emergency light, (you know, the kind with the big square trickle-charging battery pack with two little spotlights on top that come on when the power's out?) is on. Okay, fine, it's probably on because the circuit upstairs is off. And then the emergency lights flicker and flash and buzz loudly. And then stop and revert to normal.
I remind myself that the electrical system in the building is weird and those footstep-like noises that I always hear when I'm in the building late at night are just the building settling and so forth and that giving in to the completely irrational and giddy urge to run upstairs to get salt from the kitchen and start throwing it at the light would not go over well with Boss1. Boss1 being 65, very religious, not at all into horror or sci-fi or fantasy. I settle again for "Hunh."
I look around, don't see any sparks or anything, nothing else seems to be effected, none of the lights that are on in the area are flickering, just the emergency pack which is buzzing and snapping intermittently. And of course the upstairs lights are still out. I figure the emergency light is probably on because the upstairs circuit is off, and they usually buzz a bit, right?
Boss1 is in a tizzy, finally phones Boss2. Says to Boss2 when he answers, "I don't know what's going on. I can't explain it. Here." and hands the phone off to me with Boss2 going "Hello? Helloooo?" on the other end.
Sigh.
I give a basic rundown of events to date to Boss2 while Boss1 who is mostly deaf is giving a loud play by play in my other ear of what the emergency pack is doing. "It's buzzing and flickering! Oh, it's stopped. No, it's doing it again!"
After some basic things like turning off all the lights upstairs and seeing if that does anything, and much yammering in both ears, Boss2 and I have convinced ourselves that it's just a crappy emergency pack that's on because of a breaker or something being blown upstairs, and the flickering and buzzing is nothing to worry about at all. But I am to take one of the back-up drives home with me just in case the whole place burns down overnight because seriously the place is 90% paper.
Boss1 is still understandably tizzified so I hand Boss2 off to her so he can make it make sense to her because she's about two seconds from calling in the fire department. In the meanwhile, I head back upstairs to make use of what little daylight is left to finish my fiddly crap in Boss2's office.
A while later, Boss1 comes up and says she's still not feeling that great about it, but Boss2 will take a look at it tomorrow. I say okay, and I'll leave as much stuff turned off as possible while I try to get things finished for the day and lined up for tomorrow. She says that if I feel nervous I should call the police. I blink and wonder how exactly the police would stop an electrical fault, but gravely say 'Okay'. She is satisfied and heads off.
I do random other boring fiddly crap that I can do at my own desk under the light of one lamp and the glow of the monitor, note that the Internet connection is also intermittent to non-existent (hey, if I'm sitting in the building my bosses seriously think may catch fire any second, I'm gonna check my frigging e-mail. :-P) but I figure that's just random crappy internet. Maybe. Or some kind of electrical short effecting the ethernet LAN. Or, y'know, ghosts. Ha ha.
Anyway, finish up stuff, turn off as much equipment as possible, snag the back-up, douse the last light, head downstairs. Get to the top of the stairs and realize not only can I hear the emergency light buzzing and snapping downstairs and through two walls, I can feel the buzzing through the floor.
Oh crap.
Head downstairs with visions of spark showers in my head. Get downstairs. It's a lot louder, goes from off to buzz-popping and flickering to super-bright and buzzing to off. Stand there looking at it for a while, wondering what the heck to do about it, or whether to just leave and hope for the best. The box of table salt in the kitchen is looking like a less crazy idea all the time.
While standing there staring at it and noting it's kind of got a cycle now, (bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off), I note one of the big printers has every single light it possesses on, which I have never seen before, and is plaintively calling for a technician on its little readout panel. Think maybe that's the cause. Go over, gingerly turn off the power to it. Look up at the light.
Bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off. Sigh. Jokingly threaten the emergency light verbally with rock salt. Note that a machine directly under the emergency light has some kind of error screen up.
Machine under light re-boots itself as I'm looking at it. I jump, because at the same time, the copier behind me powers off and on, re-starting with a 'clunk-whirr-whine'.
Look around at the assorted machines and try to maintain what tenuous grip on reality I have. It's some kind of short in the electrical system. That's all. Look back at the light. Bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off. Machines re-boot again.
Figure, okay, what the hell. I'm alone, no one's going to see this. Feeling like an idiot, I say, calmly, out loud, "You've got my attention. What do you want?"
Bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off. Machines re-boot. Notice the cycle is getting shorter with each iteration.
Fine. Start channeling Dean and curse the light out for not communicating in an understandable manner (only half-joking at this point). Also possibly snarl the phrase 'You wanna dance? Let's dance.'
Run around looking for light switches to turn off. Bulb in the storage room is flickering in time with the emergency lighting, and none of the light switches I could find would turn it off.
Come back out into the main room. Stare at emergency light. Bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off. Machines re-boot again. Cycle is repeating about every two minutes.
Curse volubly. Threaten light again with rock salt. Hunt around for circuit breaker panel in all the logical and illogical places, including where it used to be before the renovations. No circuit breaker panel. Give up. Call Boss2. Explain that the machines are randomly turning on and off now and where the hell is the downstairs breaker panel. Try to sound rational. Only mention ghosts once. Do not mention demonic possession.
Boss2 gives me directions to the circuit panel, right next to the emergency light (oh yay) and hidden behind something I thought was solid, spackled-in drywall. I hang up and resume cursing out the lights and going down the panel methodically one breaker at a time. Cycle gets down to about thirty seconds; I can tell because the machine under the light isn't even making it past the start-up memory check before it re-boots again. Keep switching one breaker off at a time. Finally, one breaker shuts off the re-booting machines.
Look up at the light.
Perfectly normal emergency light, like it never buzzed or flickered in its life.
Stare at it and the now-unpowered machines for a good long while to make sure it's not just waiting for its chance to strike. Take the opportunity to stop cursing and grab a heaping dose of reality.
Call Boss2 to tell him which breaker I turned off, call Boss1 to tell her the emergency light isn't buzzing any more and the building probably won't catch fire. Leave huge note for person who opens reception in the morning not to touch anything.
Look at the emergency light again. Wonder if when Boss2 looks at the breaker tomorrow, that breaker will turn out to have been a huge immediate fire hazard, and maybe it was a good thing the emergency light went nuts.
Think "thank you" to the room in general. Y'know, just in case. Leave, watching the emergency light all the way out the door.
...all 100% absolutely true. Especially the swearing. This was what happened tonight at work.
Now, I'm not saying it was a ghost or that it wasn't a ghost, just that it was extremely weird and freaky. Also, that after a crazy-long workday and 52 hours into a 60-plus hour work week, my brain's grip on reality is slipperier than a soapy snake. :-P
So... this is an extremely long and freaky 'no crap, there I was,' post.
What an interesting night I've had tonight...
Electrical fault, ghost, to-may-to, to-mah-to...
So, at about 6:30, when the clients are all locked out and we can actually get some work done, I'm in one of my boss's (let's call him Boss2 for convenience) offices doing some mind-numbing incredibly important fiddly detail-oriented crap that can only be done on Boss2's station when one of the overhead lights in his office starts flickering. Exactly 'in-bound demon approaching' style.
I look up and grin because hey, it's cool, and it's a bit of a giggle on a Friday afternoon of mind-numbing drudgery.
Then the rest of the lights in the ceiling start to flicker.
I laugh nervously and wonder if one of the other people still in the building is goofing around. Then the lights slowly flicker out and die. Computer stays on though. So not a power failure or a brown out. I stare at the ceiling and laugh some more, vacillating between "OMG! Ghost!" and "Great, how am I supposed to get the two hours of fiddly detail crap done in the dark." I settle for "Hunh," with strong overtones of the latter.
Poke my head out Boss2's door, going "Hey. The lights went out." Rest of floor is fine and has lights and computers and all the joys of the modern office except for one other person whose office is pretty much in the diagonally opposite corner to Boss2's office. His lights have gone out too.
There is vague muttering among Boss1 and co-workers of calling Boss2, or finding the upstairs breaker panel and randomly flipping switches. I say "Um, no" to the second option and someone says something about mentioning it to Boss2 later, Boss2 being, among many other things, the official poker of buttons and flipper of switches in cases like these.
Everyone basically shrugs and troops back into their offices. I head back, flip off light switch in Boss2's office and continue fiddling with the fiddly detail-oriented crap, hoping to finish in Boss2's office before losing the light from the window. Eyestrain ensues.
A while later, there is a huzzah from the office across the floor; his lights have come back on. Hooray! I go turn Boss2's lights back on and they indeed work. For about five minutes, before expiring in a 'grab the salt-gun, we got company!' sort of way. Sigh. Flip light switch back off.
Co-worker in other office decides that's enough fun for one day and leaves, rest of co-workers dribble out, leaving me and Boss1. Random workstuff later, Boss1 leaves, saying she'll talk to Boss2 about it in the morning. Insert standard exchanging of info regarding tomorrow's work day with Boss1, and she heads down the stairs leaving me in Boss2's dark office, fighting with the fiddly crap.
Less than a minute later, there is a shout from downstairs. I figure she's forgotten her keys and needs locked out or something. I holler down an erudite "What?". She shouts back up that she thinks she's found the problem with the lights and it might be dangerous.
Yay, danger.
I head down expecting to see sparks flying out of one of the many copy machines and printers, get downstairs and look at what's alarmed her. The emergency light, (you know, the kind with the big square trickle-charging battery pack with two little spotlights on top that come on when the power's out?) is on. Okay, fine, it's probably on because the circuit upstairs is off. And then the emergency lights flicker and flash and buzz loudly. And then stop and revert to normal.
I remind myself that the electrical system in the building is weird and those footstep-like noises that I always hear when I'm in the building late at night are just the building settling and so forth and that giving in to the completely irrational and giddy urge to run upstairs to get salt from the kitchen and start throwing it at the light would not go over well with Boss1. Boss1 being 65, very religious, not at all into horror or sci-fi or fantasy. I settle again for "Hunh."
I look around, don't see any sparks or anything, nothing else seems to be effected, none of the lights that are on in the area are flickering, just the emergency pack which is buzzing and snapping intermittently. And of course the upstairs lights are still out. I figure the emergency light is probably on because the upstairs circuit is off, and they usually buzz a bit, right?
Boss1 is in a tizzy, finally phones Boss2. Says to Boss2 when he answers, "I don't know what's going on. I can't explain it. Here." and hands the phone off to me with Boss2 going "Hello? Helloooo?" on the other end.
Sigh.
I give a basic rundown of events to date to Boss2 while Boss1 who is mostly deaf is giving a loud play by play in my other ear of what the emergency pack is doing. "It's buzzing and flickering! Oh, it's stopped. No, it's doing it again!"
After some basic things like turning off all the lights upstairs and seeing if that does anything, and much yammering in both ears, Boss2 and I have convinced ourselves that it's just a crappy emergency pack that's on because of a breaker or something being blown upstairs, and the flickering and buzzing is nothing to worry about at all. But I am to take one of the back-up drives home with me just in case the whole place burns down overnight because seriously the place is 90% paper.
Boss1 is still understandably tizzified so I hand Boss2 off to her so he can make it make sense to her because she's about two seconds from calling in the fire department. In the meanwhile, I head back upstairs to make use of what little daylight is left to finish my fiddly crap in Boss2's office.
A while later, Boss1 comes up and says she's still not feeling that great about it, but Boss2 will take a look at it tomorrow. I say okay, and I'll leave as much stuff turned off as possible while I try to get things finished for the day and lined up for tomorrow. She says that if I feel nervous I should call the police. I blink and wonder how exactly the police would stop an electrical fault, but gravely say 'Okay'. She is satisfied and heads off.
I do random other boring fiddly crap that I can do at my own desk under the light of one lamp and the glow of the monitor, note that the Internet connection is also intermittent to non-existent (hey, if I'm sitting in the building my bosses seriously think may catch fire any second, I'm gonna check my frigging e-mail. :-P) but I figure that's just random crappy internet. Maybe. Or some kind of electrical short effecting the ethernet LAN. Or, y'know, ghosts. Ha ha.
Anyway, finish up stuff, turn off as much equipment as possible, snag the back-up, douse the last light, head downstairs. Get to the top of the stairs and realize not only can I hear the emergency light buzzing and snapping downstairs and through two walls, I can feel the buzzing through the floor.
Oh crap.
Head downstairs with visions of spark showers in my head. Get downstairs. It's a lot louder, goes from off to buzz-popping and flickering to super-bright and buzzing to off. Stand there looking at it for a while, wondering what the heck to do about it, or whether to just leave and hope for the best. The box of table salt in the kitchen is looking like a less crazy idea all the time.
While standing there staring at it and noting it's kind of got a cycle now, (bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off), I note one of the big printers has every single light it possesses on, which I have never seen before, and is plaintively calling for a technician on its little readout panel. Think maybe that's the cause. Go over, gingerly turn off the power to it. Look up at the light.
Bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off. Sigh. Jokingly threaten the emergency light verbally with rock salt. Note that a machine directly under the emergency light has some kind of error screen up.
Machine under light re-boots itself as I'm looking at it. I jump, because at the same time, the copier behind me powers off and on, re-starting with a 'clunk-whirr-whine'.
Look around at the assorted machines and try to maintain what tenuous grip on reality I have. It's some kind of short in the electrical system. That's all. Look back at the light. Bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off. Machines re-boot again.
Figure, okay, what the hell. I'm alone, no one's going to see this. Feeling like an idiot, I say, calmly, out loud, "You've got my attention. What do you want?"
Bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off. Machines re-boot. Notice the cycle is getting shorter with each iteration.
Fine. Start channeling Dean and curse the light out for not communicating in an understandable manner (only half-joking at this point). Also possibly snarl the phrase 'You wanna dance? Let's dance.'
Run around looking for light switches to turn off. Bulb in the storage room is flickering in time with the emergency lighting, and none of the light switches I could find would turn it off.
Come back out into the main room. Stare at emergency light. Bzz-snap-flicker-GLARE-bzt-off. Machines re-boot again. Cycle is repeating about every two minutes.
Curse volubly. Threaten light again with rock salt. Hunt around for circuit breaker panel in all the logical and illogical places, including where it used to be before the renovations. No circuit breaker panel. Give up. Call Boss2. Explain that the machines are randomly turning on and off now and where the hell is the downstairs breaker panel. Try to sound rational. Only mention ghosts once. Do not mention demonic possession.
Boss2 gives me directions to the circuit panel, right next to the emergency light (oh yay) and hidden behind something I thought was solid, spackled-in drywall. I hang up and resume cursing out the lights and going down the panel methodically one breaker at a time. Cycle gets down to about thirty seconds; I can tell because the machine under the light isn't even making it past the start-up memory check before it re-boots again. Keep switching one breaker off at a time. Finally, one breaker shuts off the re-booting machines.
Look up at the light.
Perfectly normal emergency light, like it never buzzed or flickered in its life.
Stare at it and the now-unpowered machines for a good long while to make sure it's not just waiting for its chance to strike. Take the opportunity to stop cursing and grab a heaping dose of reality.
Call Boss2 to tell him which breaker I turned off, call Boss1 to tell her the emergency light isn't buzzing any more and the building probably won't catch fire. Leave huge note for person who opens reception in the morning not to touch anything.
Look at the emergency light again. Wonder if when Boss2 looks at the breaker tomorrow, that breaker will turn out to have been a huge immediate fire hazard, and maybe it was a good thing the emergency light went nuts.
Think "thank you" to the room in general. Y'know, just in case. Leave, watching the emergency light all the way out the door.
...all 100% absolutely true. Especially the swearing. This was what happened tonight at work.
Now, I'm not saying it was a ghost or that it wasn't a ghost, just that it was extremely weird and freaky. Also, that after a crazy-long workday and 52 hours into a 60-plus hour work week, my brain's grip on reality is slipperier than a soapy snake. :-P
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Though admitedly if there had been a proper response, it would have been much worse in a lot of ways o_o
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I used to hate being the last teacher out of my block during the winter months. It was so dark and my area is on the far side of the school grounds and I'd have to walk under badly lit street lamps and stuff and my mind would be going OVERTIME. Curse my imagination!!
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It was quite nerve-wracking, and I have no idea what kind of electrical fault could even cause that effect. I'll feel much less surreal once someone in a utility belt tells us "Oh it's just < perfectly logical explanation >. Happens all the time."
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you are so totally brave.
I'd be storing salt packets in my jacket from now on though.... :D
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Lights...eeek
(Anonymous) 2008-04-13 02:51 am (UTC)(link)Hugs
Sharon
Re: Lights...eeek