locked up

one obvious sign that you are overworked is... when you find yourself locked up at the office!

the last thing that i expected that would happen to me in my not-so-short stay in the land of gold mines and safaris (yes, i'm still here), is to be locked up in the office. and not any other office, but a post office! yes, we were locked up because we tried to leave from work at 7:15 in the evening! sounds so early yet, huh? but it's a friday, and people just get lost at 3 pm around here. sometimes, just thinking about that, makes me want to move here :p

anyways, the only better thing of being locked up, is not being locked up alone. i was with my two colleagues from singapore. so i was not alone, fate was kinder. so, when the possibility of spending over night in a post office was starting to sink in, we got busy of thinking for other alternatives - like breaking the window grills by the stairs, and jumping off, if we managed to squeeze ourserlves in the small window . we will just have to worry about the bruises later.

crying for help

but where's the key?

the other alternative was to call for help - and i have only two persons in my mind. the first option was to call my one and only colleague based in our south africa branch (yes, it's a one-man office here). but good luck to us if he can do something about it as he is on his way home to botswana. but at least he might know whom to call to get us out of the place. the next option is the technical manager of our client. i had his number because i've been calling him the past weeks each time i have problems with our servers. embarrassing it might seem, but he's the only other person i could think of, and he just lives on the next town (at least not on the next country).

so we called him, and explained the unfortunate situation that just happened. i tried to be calm and hide my embarrassment, after profusely apologizing for the trouble. however, he also had no idea whom to call as he was just a third-party contractor working for our real client. the only option left was for him to escalate the matter to our client. that would mean, the whole office would know about this come monday... not only that, this matter would definitely reach our chief relations officer in our head office in europe. i was right, a few minutes later, i received a call. news do travel fast! i was told that our client was on the line explaining the little situation we have stirred in a cold, supposedly quiet friday night in the local post office. waaah! so, i explained we were trying to work a bit late that night. i guess that made a good impression cause i got good news. i was told that rescue would be coming in a few minutes. yey! :) yes, it was the technical manager who drived from the next town, back to the office, just to get us out, and drive us safely to our hotel. it's nice to be working with great people, isn't it? everyone was concerned at our own safety, and i am just mighty glad for that.

so, i'm sleeping comfortably here in my hotel room, and not in a post office.