Since leaving the confines of Fortune 500 corporate America, I have been faced with many tasks that are otherwise unheard of in the work environment. Now that I joined the family business, I contend with trash, snow, supplies from paper towels to toner cartridges. I am not saying it is a bad thing. However, it is certainly different. Yesterday, I was forced to deal with a situation that nobody could ever imagine.
We have a building that is from the early 19th century. I want to say the building is from 1816 or something like that. It is a frame building with vinyl siding and mostly resembles a house. On the inside it has been retro-fitted with typical office stuff. A suspended tile ceiling was added at some point before we arrived and it lives there to this day. It is practical, really. It makes running wires easy-ish, and the light fixtures are cost-effective.
It also creates a nice, private habitat for creatures if they are lucky enough to find their way in.
Yesterday I had some employees bring it to my attention that a bird was in the ceiling, chirping and moving around. I had another employee tell me that (s)he is deathly afraid of birds. So, what did I do? I grabbed the 10 foot ladder and started popping tiles up.
I couldn’t see anything and the chirping stopped for about 20 minutes. Then it started back up again, so I jumped back up on the ladder and popped open a tile and the screaming began. I scrambled down the ladder so that I wouldn’t fall and so that nobody could accidentally knock me off of it. I hadn’t noticed, but the tiniest little baby bird (probably a wren) had fallen out of the space I opened up by lifting the tile, and landed on the chair of the terrified employee.
Luckily for me, another employee was not afraid of the bird at all and immediately ran in and grabbed the baby bird in two hands and carried it outside to figure out what to do with it. After a lot of Lysol the terrified employee was willing to sit back at their desk and begin working again. The bird was left outside next to the tree that we figure their nest was in.
But seriously, I can’t tell you what kind of departure this is from the ginormous place I used to work.
