Picture a Day - Day 146

My office looks like just about any other typical room in an institutionalized building. White/ivory/yellowing with age vinyl on the floor. Three walls painted over so many times they've gained a good 5 inches to sound proof any screams of anguish and one brick wall, because nothing screams productivity and working yourself into an early grave like a brick wall.

Throughout winter and most of this spring; however, one thing has been the bane of my existence. This would be the heater (left over from some missile bunker from the 50's) I sit right next to that keeps the office a wonderfully balmy 80-90 degrees each day.

In winter I must wear light T-shirts and drink my body weight in water each day just to keep from passing out due to dehydration. It's gotten much worse in spring as the temperature fluctuates wildly. While it could be cold one day, the next it's a bright and warm day both outside and in.

We have no idea just where the thermostat is, but judging by the scribbled map I found under my desk there's something about a jade monkey hidden in the temple of the damned. Apparently I have to get the key of knowledge to secure the staff of Ra from some janitor or something.

In threatening and cajoling the heater to just stop doing its own job so I could do mine I discovered another little friendly reminder that in all things it seems the left hand is never informed of just what the right gets up to.

For inside of the heater that takes up the entire brick wall sits this:I don't know if they were thinking that little elves really need an outlet to be able to plug in their hair dryers when they sneak in from the arboretum or if they figured in the future we could just wirelessly plug everything in but we'd still need outlets.

I can just about imagine the debate between the electrician and the heat guy.

"So then we'll put an outlet on every wall."

"But the heater will take up all this space. Why would you want an outlet inside the heater no one can get at?"

"Like I said, we put an outlet on every wall and charge double for the instillation because we'll have to work around the heater."

"Oh right, and we'll have to charge double to put up the heater because there's an outlet there."

Bureaucracy at its finest.