Found Money

I got off from work today. In fact, everyone at my employer did.

I arrived at work only to find all the power off. Every building on the campus was sucking down its emergency juice. Everywhere uninterruptible power supplies beeped. People were milling around the hallways looking for ambient light to work by, dazed and confused, as if someone had rearranged all the food dishes. Engineers don't quite know what to do if they can't work. I was miffed. Some days I don't really need my computer. Some days I just need my desk, paper, and pencil. Today was not one of those days. Today I needed my computer. (As did the New Horizons launch team. A Maryland power outage actually caused a spacecraft launch in Florida to be scrubbed. Too bad. This is one way cool space mission we're controlling.)

Then came an overhead announcement: "At 6 AM the power to the main campus went off. BGE reports that power will not be restored for the rest of the day. If you are able to work, you are instructed to do so. If you are unable to work, you may take administrative leave with the approval of your supervisor."

I haven't seen such a mass exodus since that bomb scare we had back in 1985.
K-