Ben was off school today because of the parent-teacher conferences this week. Our new routine on days like this is that I let the kids sleep in and ease themselves into their day, then I take Maggie to day care and take Ben to work with me. As Ben & I are walking into the building this morning, Janhavi called me on my phone to ask me if we were going to be at work. She then told me that there had been a "bit of an accident" and that a glass jar with our radioactive vials had been knocked over and had broken. This is the second radioactive spill we have had in a month. Being in the new building, we now have a new level of vigilance when anything like this happens and we have a huge number of our public safety officers that turn up. Now, this would be fine if they knew anything about radioactivity and what measures need to be taken to contain it, but they don't. Also, it seems that we have a spill only when our radiation safety person is off campus (today-having lunch with a buddy downtown!!). By the time I get to the lab, poor Gail (who broke the jar & doesn't even work for me) is standing in the "hot zone" not allowed to leave and is surrounded by 5 other people just staring at her. It took 90 minutes for anyone from radiation safety to appear and start cleaning up the area and testing for radioactivity. Soon, everything was under control and turned out to be a mountain made out of a very small molehill. Suddenly, all the security guards took off running, seems that a fire had broken out on the 5th floor of the medical school building. This turned into a 5 alarm fire with Grand Ave being closed off in both directions while the fire was put out. This also meant that they sent all the people in the medical school home & the guys from radiation safety were stuck in our building until the fire was put out!!! I am wondering why I thought it was a good idea to go into work today and think I'd get anything done!!!!
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