survival instinct
Jun. 15th, 2007 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janegodzillaI'm only halfway through my first cup of coffee, and I'm already bored out of my skull. There's nothing to do today. It's odd, because last week I barely had time to breathe, much less be bored, but that case settled and apparently that was the only major thing going on, because...damn. Things are slooooow. I was only able to bill about 1.7 hours yesterday, which utterly sucks -- on average, we're supposed to shoot for 5.5, and while we aren't penalized if we don't make our hours for the month, it circles back around to bite us in the ass come bonus time. The more hours you bill, the better your bonus.
Somebody needs to sue somebody else, dammit. I need work that I can bill to a client.
This isn't to say that I haven't been keeping myself occupied, but non-billable work is inherently more boring than billable stuff. To keep my brain amused, I've been figuring out how secure our building would be in the event of a massive zombie attack. Here's what I have so far:
Pros:
* Limited access to the building. You can get in via the front door, the side stairwells, or the elevator, and that's it. You have to go through two sets of doors to get from the stairwell to the main floors, and the doors and elevator both are controlled via keycard. No keycard, no entrance.
* Metal doors with automatic locking mechanisms. Unless they figure out how to operate complex tools, no zombies are getting through those puppies.
* Lots of dry food and bottled water. It's not the most nutritious food in the world (cheez-its, goldfish crackers, and peanut butter, mostly), but it's better than nothing.
* Easy rooftop access -- just in case there are helicopters.
* Lots of random office equipment = lots of makeshift weaponry. Shit, all you'd have to do is dismantle the paper cutters alone and you'd have some decent machetes. Also, there's a lot of alcohol on the third floor (don't ask), which means we'd be able to make Molotov cocktails if it came to that.
Cons:
* There are street-level windows, and the front door is made of glass. It's thick glass, yes, but there's still a chance they could get through. If they do, we've lost the entire first floor and our access to the street level. The only ways out of the building then would either be through the garage level, or off the roof. :P
* Cheez-its and goldfish crackers are not going to sustain forty people for very long.
* No guarantees that the automatic locks would work if the power grid went down.
* None of the windows in the building open. Limited access in, limited access out. If the building was overrun, this would be a problem.
* No firearms = no way of killing zombies from a distance.
* Molotov cocktails would probably burn the place down anyway. They're the sort of thing we could only use from the roof in order to clear the area around the building.
Basically, our survival would depend on whether or not the door lock mechanisms remained functional. The elevator is easy enough to shut down, so that wouldn't really be a problem, but the front door would be a major issue. If the zombies broke through the glass and made it onto the first floor, then the stairwell would be potentially compromised...and if the stairwell was out, then there's no access to the third floor from the second anymore. You can get to the roof from the interior offices on the third floor, but anyone on the second floor would be royally fucked.
Unfortunately, the second floor is where most of the food and the potential weapons are, so you can see the problem. We could wait out a zombie siege if and ONLY if the stairwell stayed zombie-free. Our best bet would be to barricade off the first floor entirely and move as much stuff to the third floor as possible, just in case we did lose the stairwell at some point. Of course, that means we'd be trapped on the third floor with no way out of the building except off the roof, but that's what the portable fire ladders in the electrical room are for. I bet we could make it.
I should bring all of this up to our office manager at the next staff meeting. It's important to have a contingency plan for these kinds of things.
EDIT: I have something to do! YES! It's a human Google project and is boring as fuck, but it's billable and it will probably take me all day, and that's all I care about at this point. Hooray, kinda!
Somebody needs to sue somebody else, dammit. I need work that I can bill to a client.
This isn't to say that I haven't been keeping myself occupied, but non-billable work is inherently more boring than billable stuff. To keep my brain amused, I've been figuring out how secure our building would be in the event of a massive zombie attack. Here's what I have so far:
Pros:
* Limited access to the building. You can get in via the front door, the side stairwells, or the elevator, and that's it. You have to go through two sets of doors to get from the stairwell to the main floors, and the doors and elevator both are controlled via keycard. No keycard, no entrance.
* Metal doors with automatic locking mechanisms. Unless they figure out how to operate complex tools, no zombies are getting through those puppies.
* Lots of dry food and bottled water. It's not the most nutritious food in the world (cheez-its, goldfish crackers, and peanut butter, mostly), but it's better than nothing.
* Easy rooftop access -- just in case there are helicopters.
* Lots of random office equipment = lots of makeshift weaponry. Shit, all you'd have to do is dismantle the paper cutters alone and you'd have some decent machetes. Also, there's a lot of alcohol on the third floor (don't ask), which means we'd be able to make Molotov cocktails if it came to that.
Cons:
* There are street-level windows, and the front door is made of glass. It's thick glass, yes, but there's still a chance they could get through. If they do, we've lost the entire first floor and our access to the street level. The only ways out of the building then would either be through the garage level, or off the roof. :P
* Cheez-its and goldfish crackers are not going to sustain forty people for very long.
* No guarantees that the automatic locks would work if the power grid went down.
* None of the windows in the building open. Limited access in, limited access out. If the building was overrun, this would be a problem.
* No firearms = no way of killing zombies from a distance.
* Molotov cocktails would probably burn the place down anyway. They're the sort of thing we could only use from the roof in order to clear the area around the building.
Basically, our survival would depend on whether or not the door lock mechanisms remained functional. The elevator is easy enough to shut down, so that wouldn't really be a problem, but the front door would be a major issue. If the zombies broke through the glass and made it onto the first floor, then the stairwell would be potentially compromised...and if the stairwell was out, then there's no access to the third floor from the second anymore. You can get to the roof from the interior offices on the third floor, but anyone on the second floor would be royally fucked.
Unfortunately, the second floor is where most of the food and the potential weapons are, so you can see the problem. We could wait out a zombie siege if and ONLY if the stairwell stayed zombie-free. Our best bet would be to barricade off the first floor entirely and move as much stuff to the third floor as possible, just in case we did lose the stairwell at some point. Of course, that means we'd be trapped on the third floor with no way out of the building except off the roof, but that's what the portable fire ladders in the electrical room are for. I bet we could make it.
I should bring all of this up to our office manager at the next staff meeting. It's important to have a contingency plan for these kinds of things.
EDIT: I have something to do! YES! It's a human Google project and is boring as fuck, but it's billable and it will probably take me all day, and that's all I care about at this point. Hooray, kinda!