Oh.  Man.

Let me just preface this by saying that I knew when I took this job that there might be things that would happen.  Fire alarms, emergencies, etc.  I knew coming into this that it was a possiblity, perhaps even a probability that these things would happen.

That being said, I may never have taken the job if I could have seen into the future to this weekend.

A little background....  My week this far (since Wednesday) has consisted of this schedule:

Wednesday - (awake at 5:30) on-call (4:30 p.m. - 8 a.m on Thurs.)  / Tutoring from 5-8
Thursday - worked running credit card numbers for rent for 6 hours
Friday -  (awake at 5:30) on-call (4:30 p.m. - 8 a.m. on Sat.)
Saturday - desk shift from 8 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Sunday - on-call (8 a.m. - 8 a.m. on Mon.)


So, with that schedule, suffice to say, I have been very busy, very tired of my job, and very tired in general.

So, Friday night, I do a round from 11-11:40 and one from 12:45-1:30.  I go up to my room, talk to James for awhile, and then get to sleep around 2.  At 2:15, I get a cell phone call from one of the R.A's in the other building.  In the background of our call, I heard the fire alarm going off in that building.  "Fuck!"  I put on my clothes - my lovely yellow polo that signifies me as a member of the staff, and head over to the North Building.  Long story short, it was a pulled alarm with no emergency.  After an hour, the students were allowed back into the building.  But, things are screwy here.  We are in two seperate jurisdictions - the city and the university - which instead of meaning that we have double the help with everything, means that no one ever knows what's going on and no one ever wants to take responsibility for us.  On Friday, that meant that the Cincinnati Fire Department didn't have the access code to the fire panel and the UC guy was about an hour away.  The residents were calling and calling wondering when the alarm would stop going off (the fire department, meanwhile, had given the all-clear and had let everyone back in).  Finally, it got shut off, but I didn't get to bed until about 4/4:30.  Keeping in mind, looking at the schedule above, I had to work at 8 a.m.

Saturday was a good day.  I worked for a bit (which was a random paid shift, so it meant $$$), went to Zachary's (James' nephew) 3rd birthday party in West Chester, went shopping, and spent a relaxing evening in my apartment.  I went to bed completely exhausted around 1:30.  At 4 a.m., the fire alarm went off in my building.  I was shaking so bad as I got up that I could barely put my jeans and polo on.  I thought for a moment that taking care of things was my responsiblity, but once I realized what time it was, I felt a bit relieved.  Of course, I still had to help with everything, but not being the one in charge is nice.  Thankfully, our Assistant Manager lives in this building, so he was awakened by the fire alarm and was able to help us with everything. 

And by everything, I mean the fire. 

Okay, so it was a fire in one kitchen caused by these fucking high assholes lighting paper towels on fire, but it wasn't really as small of a deal as it might sound based on that description.  I don't know how much experience anyone here has with sprinkler systems, but they are powerful and insane.  They let out gallons of water each second.  When the fire department arrived, they stood around in the lobby, dicks in their hands, acting like it was a false alarm - WITHOUT EVEN CHECKING THE BUILDING!  One of our favorite residents came running down the stairs and yelled "The 3rd floor is flooding, there's water everywhere!"  We ran up the stairs, and sure enough, there was a river in the hallway.  An honest to God, rushing, flowing river.  And it continued to grow with every passing second.  I'm not just adding these details and sentences for dramatic effect - it was terrifying.  Especially since the hallway smelled like gasoline and the water was picking up the coloring from the carpet and looked like fuel.  Thank heavens it was just water. 

With some of the building evacuated (but most of it not - lazy residents), we started to clean things up.  While I took care of the lobby where our main computer for all the packages, the residents' packages, and some of our security equipment was being threatened by the water which was now leaking through the ceiling, Danielle, Dan, and the firefighters started getting the water cleaned up with gigantic squeegees and shop vacs.  About an hour and a half after the alarm went off, the alarms were reset and the residents were allowed to return to their rooms.  The UC fire safety official, a fire investigator, and the carpet cleaning company arrived soon after.  While the cleanup was going on, things calmed down a little bit.  I went to my room to change out of my soaking wet shoes and pants, put on socks, dry shoes, and dry pants.  I returned to the front desk and then went over to the North Building to find Danielle.  As we were leaving the building, we noticed one of the elevators was flashing "4", meaning it was stuck on the 4th floor.  We went up to the floor and saw the elevator was fucked up.  Someone had wrenched it halfway open, so we went back to the front desk and called the elevator company.

I've sort of lost steam on telling this story, but basically, we cleaned up more, I got into a fight with a lazy, rude co-worker, and then finally got to sleep around 9 in the morning.  I slept intermittently for about 3 1/2 hours and since then I've been doing things around here - sitting the desk for Hayley's break, etc.  Finally, I decided to dye my hair.  As I was washing the conditioner out of my hair, the water pressure failed.  We went to the garage below the building to reset it, but it hasn't taken hold yet, and I'm sitting here an hour later with the conditioner still in my hair!  I tried filling up glasses in my kitchen with water to use for rinsing, but then I stopped being able to get water all together.

So... I'm on-call tonight, and it's Super Bowl Sunday.  I hope I'm not up too late tonight because I have to teach tomorrow at 7:30.  As a coworker and I were discussing this afternoon, the weekend is the only time we have to refresh and refocus.  Once the week starts, it's go-go-go, and I'm just going to be beat all week because of all this.  However, after tonight, I'm off till next Monday, and I get to go out of town this upcoming weekend, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  I just desperately need to get there!  My nerves, patience, and mood are shot to shit.  I still have student writing to go through, two chapters of the Great Gatsby to read, and a couple of other lesson planning things to do... meh.

(And you know what - no one leave me any comments about how I shouldn't complain - I have a right to do it once in awhile)

Because she is so old and tired and arthritic and confused and etc., we put our family dog to sleep this morning. 

So, yeah... that sucks.  But I'm glad we did it - for her.

Love you, Mags!