Got in early on Tuesday morning and discovered an inch or so of water covering the floor of our offices - our bit and BERG's. The water was geysering out of the plughole and pouring over the edge of the sink. I was very tempted to turn around, head for the cafe and let someone else be the first to discover it. Instead I steeled my resolve and set to simultaneously calling Berg to get keys to their bit, getting as much that was valuable off the floor and trying to bucket the water coming out of the sink. Thankfully it was just rainwater coming from the roof. It could have been worse - we had to get the toilets unblocked a couple of weeks ago. Fairly soon more BRIGands arrived and calm efficiency began to take over. It was interesting to see how quickly we reverted to roles as officers and men; I quickly shirked any responsibility for dealing with authority figures and set to bailing water out of the sink. Matt W and Tom T were much more capable of getting hold of plumbers, builders and landlords and trying to get stuff sorted.
We had an eventful morning of pumps, buckets and 4-foot squeegees but have escaped any serious damage. We're still living under the threat of flood but hopefully it'll be sorted out soon. Big thanks to Tom T for writing stern emails to the landlord and to Matt W who had to spend most of his birthday evening operating a submersible pump.
I've always looked forward to having my own little office space, sharing it with colleagues who are also friends and so far it's been a joy. But it's important to remember it's not all tea, biscuits and fibre-optic fairy ornaments. There's also blocked toilets and flooding.
(I wasn't in on Monday because I had myself a day off - it's half-term. It's a sign of slightly harder times that I only got a day off this half-term. When I started freelancing I was determined to take all the school holidays off - that was part of the point. That's not possible at the moment, I'm not earning enough to have that luxury. Ah well.)
Wednesday and Thursday were with the large sport related organisation again, where I think I'm beginning to make a bit of a contribution. I've found myself remembering those large org skills and tricks again, like a retired golfer rediscovering his swing. It's hard being in the same office all day though and it's a big building, hard to get out of. I just had to get outside for 10 minutes on Thursday and fortunately it was raining which felt like concentrated outside. I just stood and let it rain on me before heading back to the powerpoint.
And Friday was a treat, I got to be the MC at The Story which meant lots of the fun and none of the work. It was a really interesting and rather lovely day. Personally I'm still rather skeptical about whether the idea of story deserves all the hooplah it gets - to me it seems more like a convenient framework to hang all the important stuff rather than being that interesting in itself - but I have absolutely no way of making that case so I'm really glad I didn't have to do a presentation.
In the background Tom continues to push beta invites out for Newspaper Club and a trickle of people are starting to make papers - the good news is that all of them seem delighted with the product and the process. Hurrah.
On the whole, a good and interesting week. Here's hoping the office won't be underwater when we get there on Monday.
