Here a builder, there a builder, everywhere a buttcrack...
We have a builder infestation at work to go along with the flies, their maggoty offspring, the aphids and the other unknown insects that chew on my plants.
Oxford is basically one permanent building site, which is miraculous considering there is absolutely no space left in this city. They are tearing buildings down and putting up new ones and renovating all over the place. And since about January it has been our turn.
It was allright while they were doing their thing on the upper floors, , but now they are on our floor! The corridor is blocked off so we have to go downstairs just to get across the building. We have no lift so we have to carry everything up and down multiple flights of stairs. Some people have dozens of trays of soil to carry.
And they are creeping ever nearer my actual lab.
Soon they will be drilling away IN our lab, and apparently this shall go on for 3 months. The dust. The noise. The ladders and huge men and random flying saws (it happened) to dodge. Something tells me sanities shall be hanging by slender threads by the end of this. How am I supposed to produce world class science, huh? Yeah yeah, so I didn't before but it could have been imminent.
Since they are knocking down whole rooms in our lab, every available space we have left is currently covered in stuff from those rooms. We are all stumbling over boxes and equipment every time we move. It is just madness. I sense the tension and the drills have not even moved in yet.
The builders are really good guys and do their best to accommodate us. It is not their fault that there are some very miserable people in labcoats wandering around these days, covered in a fine film of dust.
I foresee only one solution. A three month holiday.
Aha, bet you never saw that one coming. Sadly my superiors did not share my sentiments. Yet. Wait until the drills start I say; just wait.
You may have picked up that I have been feeling somewhat fragile in the mental department recently, but I must warn you that when the noise circus moves in I will probably start raving about badgers in my belfry or capybaras in my cranium or marsupials in my meninges.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
