I dont want to be Smug.....

Its been a really interesting couple of weeks - future plans aside (which hurts my head), work has been great - but just by circumstance things happen and have been somewhat frustrating in the past 10 days, from my cars keys not being returned last Monday at work having been borrowed by our Aged Care staff, preventing me from playing tennis and spending an hour and a half on the train to get to work (not a bad thing!) to staff members being involved in drink spiking... Little things like that!

So today, we had a 7am staff meeting, followed by a 10am Community forum which really didn't have the attendance it should have.... Grrrr - we try to help our community groups!!!!! We are also in the process of getting a new Sound System, and a new emergency evacuation system.

This story is about the latter, the EWIS system (Early Warning Indication System) - for the first time in 12 years we are going to have an audible alarm system which is a huge thing in the centre, especially for the staff - you would think that training on the system would be a priority, that walking the supervisors who are in the building (Arts Centre, the Library and the Car Park) around the building with some explanation of what is being installed, what the little red phones around the venue are, and what happens when they are picked up (ahhh that would be set off an alarm in the Arts Centre staff room which is piercing!), what to do if the alarm goes off - what itr sounds like, and lets try preventing evacuating the building of a possible 1200 people because some idiot in the car park has decided to knock the top off a sprinkler....

So today when I was pushed that little bit more, I spat the dummy (and trust me I have just shortened this story!) at a friend in the Council, who simply hasn't been communicating with us. He returned the spit and gave me a somewhat public rap over the knuckles.... I left it in the hands of my boss - it is true to say I probably could have approached the situation with a lot more patience and diplomacy, but I had had it and I was tired!

Why am I telling you this - well all good things come to those who wait, and those who try! And the Universe works in a marvellous way... I don't want to be smug and I certainly wont be for long, but I had to smile when the Manager of the Library called me tonight because her red phone had gone into alarm, sending a piercing sound through her offices, and of course she had no idea what was happening, so she called me - at 7pm! I called our techs (I was about to walk onto the tennis court for comp!) and not only has the whole system - which was turned on today with no training or explanation - gone into alarm, the entire fire board located in our staff room was smoking and about to catch alight! The electrics had failed.....

I have an incredible team, and our techs was able to cut the power to the board - what is good to know is that the back up battery works and kicked in not helping the smoking issue....

We sorted it, got a sparky out to have a look at it, I made the appropriate calls, my friend from Infrastructure and I are back on speaking terms (I tried not to be too gleeful when what I thought would happen if the system went into alarm happened like clockwork).

Its just a lovely thing when karma falls your way - watch me tomorrow, it will topple the other way - celebrate the wins I say!

That's my rant for the night.....

Bex