Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Jun 14 2001

Last night I was over at my friend Dean’s house, w…

Last night I was over at my friend Dean’s house, watching Star World(that’s the name of a channel, not a show, btw), and the building started shaking. Oh, I thought, another little earthquake. Then it really shook, jerking the building around a couple of times before settling back down again. We turned on a news channel but weren’t fast enough to catch panicking anchorpeople cowering under their faux wood prop desks as they look up at the heavy lights swinging threateningly from the ceiling. Damn. That’s the best part of an earthquake, if you ask me.

This morning, not long after I got in to work, the building started to shake again, even worse than last night. Some of the girls in the office made noises somewhere in between a whine and a scream. People started to run towards the stairwell, piles of stuff fell over, pictures swayed. I had to actually brace myself with my foot against the cubicle wall. One of our managers, a big guy from Sweden named Magnus, came out of his office, saying “Where are the stairs, please?” I remained at my cubicle, since we’re on the 8th floor and the skinny central part of our building which contains the bathrooms and the stairwells is likely the least stable part.

Everyone in the office has been talking about where they were, what they were doing, how they reacted during the quake, etc. all morning. The only thing I’m concerned about it whether stuff in my room at home, such as my computer and my stereo speakers, books, etc., toppled over as a result of the shaking. I wouldn’t be surprised, as my building tends to shake a lot even in smaller quakes. I guess I’ll find out when I get home. My room is such a mess most people would probably have a hard time telling that it went through an earthquake anyway.

The Central Weather Bureau has said that the two quakes are unrelated, but how do they know? Maybe they have someone who, like Superman, can actually go down and take a look, coming up all dirty and brushing molten lava off his lapels, saying, “Naw, those two quakes never even heard of each other.”

The most severe reaction I have ever had to an earthquake was in the wee hours of September 21, 1999. It was hot, and I had just gotten off work at the News. I had just gone to bed when my air conditioning shut off as the power failed. Just as I stood up on my bed, cursing, to see what was wrong with the A/C, the building started to shake. Then it started to shake a lot, quite violently. This, I could tell, was a major earthquake. I rushed out onto the balcony in my underwear, ready to jump the three stories to the ground if the 40-year-old building started to collapse. Fortunately for me, it didn’t. Consequently I went back inside, put on some shorts and spent the rest of the night talking with my friend Kirk, who was also on his balcony, although I am not sure whether he was in his underwear or not.

Our IT department has informed me that the Enter-your-password-every-10-minutes-“security” feature is here to stay. On the other hand, we are still using a version of Lotus Notes from 1998, and our main office in New York has said that we are not allowed to upgrade. Of course this will affect our efficiency, but the idiots will probably just put it down to the self-fulfilling prophecy of the ‘global economic slowdown’.

Joy.

I got some emails from other actual people who wondered what the big deal was about Metafilter. It’s good to know I’m not alone in this.

posted by Poagao at 7:32 am  

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