What's your space is now THEIR space

In government work, you never know what's going to happen next. I think they like to surprise people so they don't get too hung up on job stability... so when I went into work on Monday and was told our department was moving, I didn't think too much about it.

At first it wasn't an issue, I was going to continue to do my intern work focusing on the projects at hand... but then my computer went down for the second day in a row. A virus hid my folders, I couldn't do squat except wait for the Tech Guru to decide to come help me. I was helpless in that victim of the world girly kind of way -- and I was in heels. With little to do and a department to move I was sent to help clean out one of the designated closets that our department 'was allowed' to move our stuff into. I clicked my way all the way to the back of one of the other departments only to find one of my supervisors dumping boxes of expired condoms into the trash bin.

My timing is impeccable.

 

Unabashed I continued to help him as best I could in a one person closet full of all the kinds of literature that make you blush in middle school biology (and a few things that make you cringe in high school health classes). To be fair it was kind of an archeology dig as well. I found one of my most favorite markers from childhood: El Marko. I found a few sites that love the name and mysterious silhouette of El Marko as much as I do. According to one site El Marko markers just couldn't hold up to their 'permanent' claims and disappeared completely from the market. This one was unfortunately dry and I couldn't take it with me, so live on El Marko in image alone!

The next bad boy relic we found was SAPPO rubber adhesive. I was told this pink sludge was used to recycle used paper into little note pads. How economical and eco friendly! Why haven't all the Greenies hollered to get that one back? My guess is the pink stuff isn't as good for the environment as I imagine, plus making your own notepad where I work could be a liability issue and it's pretty time consuming too. We also found mounting glue for EKG's from when they were printed out in separate sheets and had to be glued to a board for the doctor to read instead of coming out in a single sheet like they do now.

Now the penultimate find was the MECHANICAL SMOKER. Meant to terrify children into never starting smoking, or convincing those who already are to quit and fast... it looked pretty intimidating on the box. Disgusting fake lungs coated in black tar, sinister looking metal headed smoker, I was totally distracted by these two things and completely unaware of the handheld pump. When we opened the box, we found the MECHANICAL SMOKER was just a ruse, the scary metal head was a cheep piece of cardboard. While I admit the tar that clung to the hand pump was still pretty disgusting, the intimidation factor was totally gone.

Doesn't mechanical mean it has to have working parts anyway?

I'd say the most hilarious part of my day was running around the second floor holding a medical eyeball. No one would take the damn thing and it couldn't stay in the closet. So here's your fearless mom intern dressed up in business wear and nice black heels tramping around between departments holding a plastic eyeball the size of a babies head. I really had to stop myself from laughing out loud in the halls as I carried it because... well that would have been crazy.

So after a day elbow deep in all the literature you don't want to read -but should- and the vault of medical equipment past I was pretty achy from trying to accomplish this in heels. Today wasn't much better as my computer still wasn't working, but I felt even less helpful. I followed people around like those little side characters in video games: oh going to the print room? Checking out the new door? you're going to the break room for coffee, well I'm right there behind you like Tails following Sonic. I even got to spend a healthy 2 & 1/2 hours by myself today. I probably could have sat there and played on my phone without penalty, but instead I did get a nice little PowerPoint done on a legal pad. Yep legal pad PowerPoint's, that's the way to go.

So the Intern's Cubicle has been an interesting place to be lately, if only because of the craziness that's going on. Just call me a Free Range Intern for now, hopefully my computer will be bug free tomorrow or Monday and then I'll be good to go!