New Office
As an IT guy, I am not worthy of working in our main city office. The Nerd Inspectors (think of the wizarding world's Dementors) have cast us and our loving machines into the wilderness of the Melburnian suburbs.
To be honest, I didn't mind this because
- whenever you're around the business (i.e. the customer) they're always hassling you and asking awkward questions like "When are you ever going to do what you said you would?", and
- the data centre is a much more modern, spacious office.
That is, until now.
The Melbourne HO is in the process of moving to a brand spanking new building in the centre of the CBD. Today, I got a leave pass to visit the place. But almost didn't make it.
The Nerd Inspectors had obviously placed nerd repelling charms on the new building because I was having trouble finding the entrance. The obvious one still had temporary fencing around it, and the one door that I did manage to find didn't open when I tried to push and pull it (which I assume is how it opened). Beginning to feel a little stupid (as you do after trying a door that won't open and realising that everyone was looking at you) I carried on up the street a bit. After trying to push some panes of glass that didn't even have hinges attached to them, I was beginning to feel very stupid and panic that somebody I knew would come along and see me being a right nerd. Then I saw it, a massively massive rotating door system that even Hagrid could get in. It was a very clever nerd repelling charm. Nerds are people who are so used to things getting smaller and smaller, so make the entrance as large as you possible can! "The nerds will never find it!", they must have thought.
So, I finally got into the entrance lobby and looked around at the 'obvious' entrance that was fenced off. People were coming through it, which confirmed to me that nerd repelling charms had indeed been cast because the normal people could obviously walk straight through the fencing - they probably couldn't even see it. Either that or I just didn't see the gap in the fence.
Anyway, feeling good about beating the protective enchantments, I headed for the lifts and suddenly I felt a stealing sense of despair, of hopelessness, filling me. "Excuse me, Sir. Where are you heading?" a voice called to me. "Err," I replied - wondering how the inspectors had found me so quickly. "I think you'll be wanting to take the lifts on the other side of the lobby," the hooded figure helpfully (but menacingly) suggested.
With trepidation, I approached the other lifts. I reached the security gates, used my pass and was through first time. 'But this could all be part of the nerd trap. Don't relax yet,' I was telling myself. And, sure enough, there was another nerd repelling charm in place: Rather than a simple 'Up' button to call a lift, there was a large keypad with a display. People were entering and receiving codes and then disappearing into the various lifts around me.
Now I was for it. Why was everybody's input and output codes different? What was the right code for me to enter? Would it identify me as a nerd? What did the responding code mean?
After a few minutes of reconnaisance (pretending to be talking to somebody on the mobile phone - luckily this is no longer considered nerdish - so that nobody thought I was just hanging around the lift lobby not having a clue what to do) it all clicked.
The input code was the floor number you wanted, and the response code was the lift you had to take. Another fantastic nerd repelling charm. Nerds are so used to keypads/displays/codes being used for everything complex, so make it really simple. "They'll never understand this!", they must have thought.
But I did understand it (albeit after an embarrasingly long period of time), so I entered a floor number (where I'd heard some resistance nerds had managed to hide out) and got a lift code back. A scary moment! It was a completely different lift to those that everybody else had used, and I was now fearing that this was indeed a nerd trap.
But I had no choice except for getting into the lift (or looking a right prat). Slowly, it began to rise and I began to feel like I had when I first went on Nemesis. I just knew that it was taking me to the top so that the following free-fall had a much greater chance of killing me. As my heartbeat quickened, there was a sudden noise.
"Fifteenth Floor", a very loud and brash female voice announced. The doors opened and I stood there. Too frightened to get out. The doors tried to close, and I knew this was my only chance of survival so I dived through and landed in the empty lobby.
Everything was still. Not even a mouse was moving (but then a mouse probably couldn't be bothered going all the way up to the 15th floor - and certainly couldn't have worked out the keypad system to get a lift). I walked around the corner and saw that the whole floor was empty and dark. The normal people who would shortly inhabit this space had not yet moved in. More worrying was the fact that I couldn't see my fellow nerds. Then I realised that they would have placed their own protective charms against the normals. The only way to overcome this was to declare your nerdishness. It was a dangerous thing to do in public, but I pulled out my bluetooth earpiece and put it on. Suddenly, I heard laughter at the far end of the office. Walking towards the noise, I began to make out my friends. Fellow nerds, enjoying their place of freedom in the knowledge that they were protected from the normals by an electomagnetic field from a Wi-Fi hub.
I was finally safe in the new office.
And, boy, it is a lovely office.
(Which was the original point of this post but I got a bit sidetracked!)
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