One week at a time: Week 51

This week I learned a new skill at work, one that was severely understated in my job description on arriving here. In truth, I did sort of ask for this, though, so I won't complain too much. After years of mouse poop, ratty ceilings (literally), half-assed A/C fixes and floor cleanings, and every form of biological abuse you can imagine for our office, the department finally decided to redo the administrative suite upstairs again. No, not just kidding. Then, the powers that be thought it would be good to repaint the hallways, toss out all of the traditional furniture and "modernize" our lobby. Of course, it makes perfect sense to complete this during student recruitment over the summer, so our whole building was trashed. And as the projects dragged on and we were repeated decontaminated for asbestos (each time, we had to request they consider that - the university would always just start right in tearing out ceiling and pipes above our heads), the powers that be decided to extend the project to the basement.

Once the project moved to the basement, I got even a bit hotter about things. Not only were they blocking my project from happening and trying to tell me that it would just be a couple of day delay (without predictability, during a continuous culture experiment), but they were leaving our office out of the mix. Well, one of the grad students mentioned this to the department chair and he promptly made sure that the renovations team got our office added to the list. And then began the exodus. True to form, they hired movers to clean out their offices upstairs, but then said we needed to have everything out by a certain day on our own. Not being the complaining type, I voiced that we would like to have cardboard boxes to do the moving, and that I didn't plan to assemble a team to move the furniture. As the wheel got squeakier (as much as I hate being that guy), we were given move-out dates, crates for belongings, and also asked if we would like the office painted. I volunteered our labor to paint the office if they would supply everything and they jumped on this opportunity. Apparently painters get paid a lot by the hour - and a lot more than graduate research associates with "departmental obligations".

As I mentioned before, I had also spent a great deal of time vocalizing my frustrations at the inconsiderate behavior of the project contractors who intended to block our lab access without communication and remove the asbestos and ceiling tiles. "Only for a couple days, shouldn't be a big deal; we will let you know the day before we do it." Yeah, for those of you who have done culture work, you know that a day notice before a two-day block renders your entire summer useless if you don't force a schedule and clarify that blocking your lab is not acceptable. So... the next thing I know I'm in planning meetings with our lab manager. Wouldn't have been too bad if they had stuck to their schedule that we finally agreed on, but that's another story.

Anyhow, so as the summer has progressed on, this saga has deepened to where I am one of two main points of contact for project timing in the basement and one of two contacts for our office as well. Come Wednesday of this week, we get an email requesting our help painting the room - "shouldn't take 2-3 people more than 2-3 days". "Will you have it done by Monday? The ceiling guys will be here Tuesday and you must be out." Fantastic. So not only do we need to paint the room over the weekend, but it's been turned into a deadline for a voluntary project. And again, we got short notice.

Ciudad de Juarez, 2005.

So Thursday we get the paint supplies and I start early with a couple of people cleaning the walls of all the shit that came down when they tore out the ceilings and didn't clean up after us. We should've thought to take a "before" picture, but it was too late. I am honestly very proud of our office; we all came together and got the room done that day. Mind you, it wasn't pretty, but it was done. I had only painted once before in my entire life, and that was in Mexico back 8+ years ago. Not much has changed, I'm still too OCD to enjoy it and too easily distracted to stay a details guy. Good thing that only one of us had ever painted before! But in all, 7-8 people showed up to help and we all learned a thing or two about painting through the day which I'd like to share with you now.

1) Scaffolds make a huge difference in large rooms with high ceilings. Don't think twice about it.

2) Paint doesn't dry as quickly as I thought. Pour it out to prevent so many trips back and forth to the source.

3) Clean the walls that you are going to paint, especially if you aren't using primer. It makes a huge difference and keeps all your paint clean, too.

4) Drink heavily. That's self-explanatory.

5) Don't worry about getting messy - it's inevitable.

6) Teach your help proper rolling techniques. Apparently this involves steady rolling motions and adequate paint coverage of the whole roller. Otherwise you can see fade-in/fade-out spots from a bad job.

A picture of our group painting the office.

So now after a day and a half, we have the room done. Good thing, too, because the ceiling guys came in Friday morning while we were still working and said the office staff told them they could start Thursday if they wanted to. Sometimes I freaking hate administration staff.

Sorry that my frustrations will fill the bulk of this week's post, but let me fill you in on a few other things of note via pictures/captions.