Door Programming

This morning was a hoot. Or a major annoyance. Depending on your point of view.

About half of our office doors didn't work, resulting in lots of bemused lecturers trotting around the corridors looking very puzzled that their electronic keys no longer opened their office doors.

Cue a constant stream of lecturers rushing along with their keys to a certain programmer's lair, several buildings away, where said programmer was reputed to be the One Who Programs Doors, and capable of fixing the situation. It transpired that a few years ago the programmer had been programming the doors and needed to think of an expiry date for the keys. So he picked a date nice and far into the future where he thought he wouldn't have to worry about it. It was today's date that he picked. And did he warn us about this in advance? Did he even record this date for future reference? Did he cocoa. He just left us all to waste lots of time this morning and get annoyed.

Cost of the programmer's laziness: about seven manhours altogether.

Still, it got us all talking to each other for once. The only other thing that comes close is the arrival of cakes in the coffee room.