access granted

I've been working in the same building on and off for... oooohhh... about fifty billion years, give or take... no, seriously, since, like 2001, and in that time the building security has gone from none to swipecard door locks every five paces (okay, not quite that bad... but when you need a keycard to go to the bathroom, because they're on the other side of the "secure zone", that kinda tells you something).

And being a temp, at least for short assignments, means you don't get a swipecard of your own (actually they're "proximity cards", since you don't need to swipe anything, just wave them around the general area of the "lock")... This was okay when I was working in the IT Department since they had a couple of former staff member's cards that hadn't been deactivated for one reason or another... so I got to use those... but that was back in the days when you just had to show that you had a swipecard/ID at the security desk. And the nice folks at the desk obviously weren't paying THAT much attention, because I used two different people's cards during the year I was there and they never pulled me up on it once (at least the second guy's card kinda looked like me... the first card I was using had belonged to a guy about 20 years older than me who had a full, and greying, beard).

Then after I left IT, they came in with these electronic "gates" in the foyer that open with your swipecard, highly inconvenient when you're just bumming around the place on a visitor's badge, especially since somebody from Security has to be paying attention to let you in (or out) through one of them every time you go anywhere.

But not today... for today I am a god (that's small-g god, obviously)... yes, that's right after being here for a week and a half I finally have my very own, unique and personal swipecard... all of my very own... wait, I said that already, right?

Alas, they did have to take my photo to put on the card... *makes face*...

And there must be some cosmic universal rule about ID photos... no matter what, you always end up looking slightly odd... in my case I even had the security guard take a second photo, since my mouth was open halfway through the word "Cheeeeeese" in the first photo (his fault, since he took it too early), and I looked slightly deranged, so he took a second one. He showed it to me to make sure it was okay, and as photos of me go, it wasn't bad... not great, but not bad... but when I got the card at lunch time, the photo had morphed somehow and I looked a little strange... slightly stretched out and looking much more bemused by everything than I remembered being (although, by that point I probably WAS bemused by the whole photo taking process).

But at least now I can come and go... and visit the bathroom for that matter... without either having to call somebody to let me in, or borrow somebody's card.

Woohoo....

I'm sure the excitement will wear off by tomorrow (jeeze, I hope so!)... but for now, as I said before...

Woohoo....

(Actually the excitement kind of wore off when I discovered that I don't have access to the stairwell, since I'm only working on the first floor it seems a little lazy to take the elevator down)

UPDATE: Turns out my card will access the stairwell, you just have to jiggle and/or slap the door around...

Current Mood: