1 hour ago
6
EPISODE 9 It's 3:30 am and I'm at work, having been woken up by numerous outage notifications. The Boss – as useful as Jason Statham's method acting coach – is also on site, presumably to offer moral support.
The Building Manager – who's so old that his CV likely includes the construction of a vessel for the shipping of pairs of animals – is nowhere to be seen.
The PFY is also absent. His excuse will likely be that he "accidentally" put his phone into silent mode. Had any of the alerts been from his rack of Bitcoin mining machines, however, he'd have been in the office in a flash.
Security appears to be hard at work protecting the couches in the foyer of the building from being stolen.
The rest of the building is in darkness – save for the shining beacon that is Mission Control.
"What's happened?" the Boss asks.
"Power outage," I reply.
"Do we get someone in for that?"
"Only if we want to wait till 9am to call our electrical contractors, who'll agree to turn up between 9 and 5 sometime in the next two weeks."
"So what do we do?"
"We go to the basement!" I reply, "but first we need THE KEYS".
"The keys?"
"No. THE KEYS."
"What are THE KEYS?" he asks.
"THE KEYS are what ex-local government buildings like this have for access to places you're not supposed to go. They're for the rooms you 'accidentally' show people if you think they're planning a hostile takeover of the company. You open the door and say something like 'I'm pretty sure that's not asbestos' or 'Why would we have needed all those leaky drums of 2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic acid ?'"
"Are the rooms dangerous?"
"Not if you keep the doors closed."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I'll open a couple of the doors."
...Five minutes later in the basement...
"Oooh, there's a clue," I say to the Boss, pointing. "A Bakelite – or, to be specific, phenolic – label. Circa 1970s. There's bound to be something horrible behind that door."
>creak<
...
>slam<
"Moving on," I say.
"What was behind the door?"
"Something horrible. We're not talking 'three-hour Richard Stallman monologue' horrible, but it was pretty bad. Anyway, let's try door number two."
>creeeeeeak<
"Ah, now this is promising. Cables from the ceiling. Unless they're snakes."
"SNAKES!" the Boss gasps.
"Nah, just cables. And, look, ALL METAL service breakers – and not a speck of safety-oriented insulation to be seen!"
"What does that mean?"
"It means life was cheap back in the '70s. Now, see those four massive breakers, all pointing to the Bakelite ON position, and one ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE breaker over there, in the OFF position?"
"Yes. Do we just turn it on?" the Boss asks.
"Only if you want to save your loved ones the cremation fees."
"?"
"The smaller breakers are three-phase 1,000-amp units, but that big one's a 5,000-amp unit. Designed for the days when offices were crammed with people and bar heaters."
"So what do we do?" the Boss asks.
"We get a broom. A wooden broom. A DRY wooden broom. Then we turn OFF all the massive breakers, then turn ON the REALLY massive breaker."
...Two minutes later...
"Is this safe?" the Boss asks nervously.
"Not even slightly," I say, brandishing the broom.
>CLACK!<
>CLACK!<
>CLACK!<
>CLACK!<
"That wasn't so bad," the Boss sighs.
"We're not to the good part yet. But maybe you want to move away a little bit."
"How far?"
"The third floor would be wise, but the doorway will do."
....
>CLUNK!<
...
"So we're... OK then?" the Boss asks.
"In the words of Karen Carpenter, we've only just begun. Now we have to turn all of those smaller breakers on again, one of which will likely trip the massive breaker."
"Is that a problem?"
"The really massive breaker's over 50 years old, covered in rust, and has probably only ever tripped from a fault once. The miracle here is that it did so without exploding."
"So?"
"So, sometimes you've just got to spin the potato," I say, raising the broom again.
>CLACK!<
...
>CLACK!<
...
>CLACK!<
...
...
>CLACK!<
"It worked!" the Boss gasps happily, as light returns to the building.
"Yeeeessss," I say, leading the Boss out of the room and shutting the door as quickly as I can.
"You... don't seem happy?"
"No. There's a fair chance that whatever tripped the big breaker will trip it again the next time whatever it is star-"
>FZZZZZ< >CLUNK<
"Oh," the Boss says, disappointed. "Do we switch it back on again?"
"Did you hear that buzzing sound before the lights went out?"
"Uhhh, yes. What does that mean?"
"It means we need to (a) go upstairs, (b) turn off the power to a rack of very noisy machines, and (c) switch our phones to silent and pretend we've never been here..."
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