So I just walked into work and both of my bosses informed me there was an accident.
In the manuscript room, there are a number of long fluorescent lights that have rectangular “shades.” The “shades” are about four feet long, two feet wide. Something like that. One had just fallen during the night and there were shards of plastic all over the floor.
We have seats in the room for when we have a big tour (usually about once a week). It fell right on one of the seats. Someone obviously could have been sitting there.
My department head informed me that sometime in the last year, he was finally able to get Buildings and Custodial to come and clean out the lights because they were full of cobwebs and looked terrible. However, Custodial are not allowed to be up high (by their union standards). So they had to get city electricians to come in and do it. The electricians managed to not get all the clips that hold the lights in place back on. This was discovered after they’d left and Custodial refused to do it. Thus the accident.
Heaven know what it will entail to get anyone to come and do the clips and ensure that no other fixtures will fall on people, books, whatever.
This is the face of a city agency.
