Okay well it was not funny ha ha but after everything was done we managed to laugh at what happened. I told you guys and gals about how I got some hours over at the bookstore right? Well they are doing some work on the ceiling now during the break between semesters and everything has just been crazy.
We have been working in a frenzy to get the store presentable for the rush on Tuesday when summer classes begin and the bookstore staff and the remodel people have been doing a crazy dance to stay out of each other’s way.
Around 1pm the alarms started going off but we ignored them because the ceiling people were always setting them off. Then we started to notice this weird gassy smell, along with a strange hissing noise. Everyone looked up, only to find black water coming out of the ceiling at the back of the store. We immediately rushed to start taking the books off the shelves but a good 20 feet of books got covered by the smelly, black water and other debris coming from the ceiling.
The people working on the ceiling had broken one of the pipes in the sprinkler system and with the water gushing out the whole back area of the bookstore was flooded. The books were horribly damaged and the place was all stinky. My task for the rest of the day was to wipe down books to see what we could salvage and place them on some dry shelves. This means that all the books I had spent the previous day putting out on those shelves had to be moved back. Then we will have to move them again.
The manager is upset because it was a really unfortunate thing to happen and who knows what the insurance will cover. Plus this set us back a whole day because everything else had to be stopped to work on saving the books that we could.
The humor in this day came when I pointed out that at least it did not happen on Tuesday when we had customers in there. Not only would we have wet books during a rush but we would also have wet customers…who would not appreciate that very much. I did not mean for it to be funny…. but everyone started laughing and it broke down the tension, so it all turned out ok.
I had that happen to me one time at work, too. Except that I work in the hospital. The entire ICU got flooded. I should tell that story one time.
Ok this will probably come off really mean…. but thats hilarious!
Text books are soooo overpriced its not even funny! Maybe some of those books will qualify as “used” and sell for less!
Oh, and it put you guys back a days work… well maybe thats a good thing… an extra day of work that you can get in and make more money!
Oh Jagular PLEASE do tell the story. Our manager was all panicky and it was ‘just books’ so I can’t imagine what it would be like in a hospital.
And as for you Shawn š yeah we did take some of the new books and marked them as used because of the water damage. I thought about the extra day of work too…especially when the manager asked if I could work 8-4 on Friday (instead of the original 8-12 I was scheduled) to get everything ready. That was cool….but then I got sick and I cannot make use of that time. Bah!
Oh well everyone else who volunteered will get the money and since the school is closed on Fridays then there are no ‘pesky’ customers to get in the way. š