No Food in the Data Centre!
Posted by a virtual unknown on March 3, 2008
This morning, I discovered a garbage can in the wasteland that is the alternate data centre. I am one of two people from the big “M” that have access to that room, because it belongs to a different company called the big “C”.
The garbage was piled like a mountain above the edges of the container, with paper coffee cups from Tim Horton’s and Starbuck’s. I hunted down a garbage bag, thinking that I am a very highly overpaid janitor; but that notion dissolved as I stood over the heap of rubbish and began to tilt it towards the mouth of the open plastic bag.
A most foul emanation revealed itself to me and my eyes began to water immediately. There was liquid at the bottom of the container. Green and white puffs floated in the brown substance. I felt as if someone had been wringing out the sock of a marathon runner onto my face as I continued to pour as much as I could from container to bag. I coughed a couple of times and had to spit. When I brought my face closer to the putrid remnants I realized that there must have been a mix of lattes and coffees discarded here. Mumbling some remarks about my counterparts at the big “C”, I realized that some of the solids were ‘glued’ to the sides of the receptacle. Despite classifying myself as agnostic, I thanked God for having a pen that I have no particular sentimental attachment to. I pried the plastic wrappers and used facial tissues that were clinging to the walls with my pen. Everything was coated in gum and a mysterious, oily goo.
The bag was twisted and tied before both it and the trash container were removed from the data centre; placed where the building maintenance staff usually collect waste materials before transporting them downstairs.
Two coworkers were nearly bowled over in the hallway as I made a hasty dash to the mens washroom to wash my hands up to my elbows. The stockpile of moist towelettes and my depot of antibacterial cleaning fluids was completely depleted within moments of returning to my desk. The coworker who sits across the aisle from me, who I will call AV, watches with a curious eye as I type this account and breath through the lapel on my shirt so that I can smell Tide with Lilac and Bounce with Febreze.
