Well, my spacy day ended early. I got some quality work done, fixing a problem with the backups, troubleshooting a web server issue that turned out to be a client side issue and laying out a rush poster. I was doing ok until the helicopter fumes hit.
The building our office is in used to have a recurring problem with the helipad. The outflow vents for the air conditioning system were on the roof, so whenever a helicopter landed it would force exhaust backwards through the vent system. Or at least that’s the main theory. There used to be a number you could call to let Building Facilities know that you were smelling fumes, but that’s been discontinued… They moved the helipad sometime last year and the problem went away, mostly, so I guess they figured that that was what the problem was.
The word “mostly” there should be a little red flag.
Every so often, there is a powerful smell of either kerosene or diesel fuel that floods some of the offices. Lucky us, ours is one of the ones that gets it the worst. At about two this afternoon the air got so thick with stench that my boss closed down the office until it cleared. He and TempKevin took their laptops over to the coffee shop so they could continue work, but I looked green enough from the combination of Sunday’s yark-fest and the fumes that he sent me home.