I love my job. I must love it. How else can you explain what I was doing in there on Sunday. Well it could be because I didn’t have much choice.

Anyhow. I had to go into work yesterday. The server rack never had any cable management put in and the back of it was a bit of a rat’s nest. So I headed in to get it cleaned out early Sunday morning. (You can’t go around unplugging servers during Normal hours … the users get irate.) I brought my 11 year old with so he could give me a hand and keep me company. After getting everything disconnected, we were ready for a little break. We stepped out of the office and were going to find a soda. The door clicked closed behind us and for some reason I reached back to check it. Locked. Normally, once you unlock the door it stays unlocked, but if you turn the lock in the inside, you can have it so it stays locked all the time. Which is what the cleaning crew must have done on Saturday.

I reached in my pocket … you know what comes next, right? No keys. They were in my jacket pocket, in the office. A maintenance guy had come in to let some contractors in. I asked him to unlock my door. He didn’t have keys for any of the offices, only for the plant floor. I called the production manager. He didn’t answer. Anyone else I could have called lived over a half hour away. I got out a ladder and set it up in front of the door. I climbed up, popped a ceiling tile and took a look around. The wall around my office goes up about 10 feet and there is only about 2 feet of clearance between the ceiling and the roof. I grabbed a broom handle and tried to manipulate the lock on the inside. No luck. By now my son had decided I was insane. I was inclined to agree with him.

I could have called my boss. I probably should have. But I just couldn’t. I would have to hear inferences about how I can’t even take care of my keys for weeks. I decided I would rather break my neck than hear that. So I handed my cell phone to the kid and told him to call his mother if I fell to my death. Then I climbed up the ladder, got myself straddled on the wall, and proceed to lower myself into the office. All I an say about that is: it is a good thing I have lost some weight recently or this story might have had a different ending. I unlocked the door and we got back to work. No soda for us.

The moral of this story is: If you’re going to work on Sunday Morning you might as well break into your own office just to keep it interesting. I guess the good news is that it really kind of has to get better from here.