Too Many Stairs

I woke up this morning feeling not too great. First of all, something I ate yesterday obviously wasn’t too happy with me. Second, I think the air mattress I sleep on has lost just a bit too much air without me repumping it, so I am all sore. My back hurts and my chest hurts. But both only on the right top side. Plus there is the whole thing about everybody deciding to start doing everything an hour earlier starting this week. So I need to start aiming at being at work at 16 UTC instead of 17 UTC. Which is a pain. (Of course, any of those are better than the 12 or 13 UTC which was common at the last job…)

I drag myself out of bed, on track for 17 UTC, not 16 UTC and manage to get to work. A bit late, but not so much anyone would really care. Things are pretty loose here as long as you get done what you are supposed to get done.

In any case, there is a 18 UTC weekly staff meeting (used to be 19 UTC damn it). I am at work in plenty of time for that. I get coffee. I get settled. Then a few minutes before hand I head up to the meeting on the 10th floor of this building. The rest of the folks weren’t heading up quite yet, but I figured I’d get up there a couple minutes early.

There is another meeting in the room. I think nothing of it, I am early. But a few minutes go by and they do not leave, and the rest of my team doesn’t show up. A couple more minutes and someone from the meeting that is going on asks if I have a meeting scheduled and tells me he has that room booked for the next hour. WTF?

I go back down to my office on the 5th floor to double check the meeting request. Yup. 10th floor. And everybody is gone. Not one person from my group left in their offices.

I go back up to the 10th and check other conference rooms. Then the 9th, then the 8th, then the 7th, then the 6th, then the conference rooms on the 5th floor. Still nothing. I run into one other person from my group who has also gotten lost. We call a couple cell phones. Voice mail. We email one person in the group with a blackberry. Nothing. So I start looking at more conference rooms. 4th. 3rd. 2nd. 1st. Then back up again. 2nd. 3rd. 4th. 5th. 6th. 7th. 8th. 9th. 10th. Still nothing.

I am about to give up when I realize the 10th floor is not the top floor. I decide to make one last effort and go to the 11th floor. And there they are. I emailed the other lost person from my phone to let him know I had found the meeting.

Then I joined the meeting, 20 minutes late, and pretty tired from not feeling great to begin with and now having gone up and down the stairs multiple times. (Not to mention the various additional elevator trips I also took but did not enumerate… the ups and downs above were just the ones I did by stairs… OK, I mentioned it…)

It was promised that next week the meeting reuqest would be updated to reflect the actual room the meeting would be in.

I hope so. I’m not in good enough shape to go running up and down ten stories of steps several times just to find a meeting!

I want a nap now.