Right this way

In the three years that I've worked where I do, the building has changed quite a bit. When I first started out, my cubicle was next to an exit that led outdoors, and in fact to the designated outdoor smoking area. That was pretty annoying for me, as the smoke had a strong tendency to waft in when people would open the door. Fortunately, after about a year, the factory expanded, and that outdoor area was enclosed. That left me with a convenient shortcut to the new coffee corner in place of the smokey outdoors, and I was happy. We still had an EXIT sign (in Hebrew, yetzia) above the door leading to the coffee; since the new exit was through there, it all made relative sense.

The company just keeps on growing, and all the departments with it. We finally got our upgrade in the engineering department this past month. We moved from cubicles to "open space," and got fancier (like I said, everything's relative) desks, chairs and individual shelving. Here's my new corner:


(Please note the blinds behind where I sit - that's a window, since it used to lead outside, but now it opens to the back of a closet. Needless to say, I leave the blinds closed. Convenient hook, though.)

Anyway, when they were designing the opener space, the need to scootch the door over became apparent. The door had previously been in the corner of the room, but in order to utilize the corner so that someone else could sit there, they decided to move that door to the center of the wall. You can actually see the very edge of the newly placed door in the photo above - it's between me and the guy who now sits to the side of me. The door no longer leads to the coffee corner, it ends at our archive/closet.

I realize that this is a bit confusing, but the funny part is not so confusing. They went to a lot of trouble to move the door and rebuild walls, but apparently removing the EXIT sign was just too much trouble.


That's pretty funny, right? Yesterday, the fire alarm went off accidentally for about four seconds, and one of my coworkers and I realized that our emergency exit is now farther away than it would have been had the coffee path been left open. It's still not very far away - the whole building is pretty small. But for some reason I couldn't get an image out of my head - that of a Toby shaped hole in the wall below the EXIT sign, ala Warner Brothers...

Back at last

Hi everybody, sorry to have been away for so long. It's been a crazy few weeks, but I'm back, and happy to be.

My brother came to visit last week, and we had a great (albeit hurried) time with him. We were chatting in the kitchen one day, and naturally, the conversation eventually turned to silly street signs. I told him about a funny one that I had briefly seen in Jerusalem, while sitting at a red light. Unfortunately, by the time I had gotten my camera out, the light was green, and I had to settle for "I'll come back and get it someday." Anyway, I went to work, and he went touring, and lo and behold, by the time he got back, he had managed to photograph that very sign! I was quite excited, to say the least, and I hope you enjoy our cooperative efforts:


This one is equally funny in English and in Hebrew, and I assume also in Arabic, although that one I can't yet read. It's near those things in the entrances to one-way driveways or parking lots. You know, those pointy things sticking up out of the ground to discourage you from driving in the wrong direction. I actually know someone who blew two tires as she went the wrong way, but that's a whole different story.

Anyway, the funny thing to me is that although the sign is presumably a warning, no actual warning appears. It doesn't say "Beware, Spikes" or "Wrong Way, Spikes," just "Spikes." Then the exclamation point comes and adds a simple, almost childish look, as if to say "Woo hoo! Spikes! It's a party!"

Dunno - I enjoyed it.