The Cathedral update

It is now 17 years since the beginning of the restoration of the cathedral, and it finally dawned on some that rate of limestone melt is higher then the rate of cathedral restoration. A flurry of fund raising ensued, such as selling of restored church property in the historic district of town to new shopping/office centre being built by local general (who escaped to Austria when it was discovered that he may have taken a few bags of jewels when he left his office in Elbonian MoD few years ago), or prisoners gathering used PET bottles for recycling (about 12 bottles for a US dollar). Somehow that did not raise quite as much money as was needed, so more radical solutions are contemplated. Current church officials are talking about opening a restaurant/beerhouse in one of the old defensive cathedral towers. Supposedly it will not only bring money for the restoration, but will also attract young believers back to the church.
If you think that this is slightly weird, you should know that famous elbonian Cathedral of Đakovo has a chimney sticking out of it.

Our Cathedral

My town was a proud owner of the Europe's most magnificent Romanic cathedral until the unfortunate earthquake in the last half of the 19th century. Church and city fathers, in their infinite wisdom, decided to rebuild the cathedral and make it bigger, better and older, by rebuilding it in (neo) Gothic style. Since money was scarce, they used the local stone quarry which produces a distinctive yellow tinged soft stone. Needless to say, 20th century car industry has not proven a great friend to soft yellow limestone (acid rains and such), so most of the Gothic lacework on the cathedral melted away. Despite the fact that because of its half molten appearance, our cathedral stopped being a run-of-the mill neogothic thingie and started to look like Gaudiesqe Sacrada, our infinitely wise church and city fathers decided to restore it back to its (non-original) neogothic yellowstone splendor. Since money was scarce, they decided to use the local stone quarry with its yellow tinged limestone.

The proud card owner

My repeated petitioning to get a security card so that I could pass through the building unhindered was rebuffed with various bureaucratic excuses (same ones that prevent them for giving me lunch in official restaurant) and thinly veiled accusations. I decided to embark on a voyage of revenge, and so I picked up security cards from all my colleagues that recently left for 6 month vacation in Jerka Jerkastan (wonderful country full of good intentioned people immortalized in such movies as "Team America", "9-11" and others.). I shall hold and use these security cards, security cards that rule them all, security cards that find them, security cards that bring them all and in darkness bind them!
.. until they finally relent.
Truly, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The doors update

My office has one of those high security doors which can only be opened with key card, keys, tv-camera phone-like-device in the office, and anyone leaning hard enough on them. This last bit was a bit worrying, so someone in the hierarchy called the company that installs these doors to come and take a look at it. So two weeks ago, a grey haired guy appears and starts to take our door apart. Since we only work in the office, and he was, strictly speaking, working outside our office, everyone decided that he was Somebody Else's Problem. This grey haired guy continued to fiddle with the door until lunchtime, when he explained (to random person passing by, in this case, me) that he has to call other guys, and that the problem is going to be solved tomorrow. The door could not be closed any more.
Next day, three more persons appear and start fiddling with the door (mainly trying to slam it close as hard as possible to see if that would lock them). After some time, they gave up and left saying that they need to call the chief master repairmen guy, who is going to come tomorrow and definitively solve the problem. The door still couldn't be closed.
The following day that grey haired person appears again, starts to fiddle with the door. After slamming it really hard a few times, he proclaims (to the random person passing by, in this case, again me) that the problem is in the tiny delicate spring mechanism in the lock, probably broken because "someone was slamming the door too hard". He takes apart the lock, starts shaking his head, puts most of the pieces back together and leaves.
Nobody else appeared next day, or ever after.
The door still can't be closed, and as added bonus, anyone who tries to open the door is left standing with the door handle in his hand.

The chairs update

Sometime between my posts a bunch of boss creatures appeared in the office, demanding to see the chairs in the back room. Some confusion ensued when they discovered that all the chairs are in red leather, instead of just the boss-intended ones. After this, some other people arrived and took all the chairs into the hallway in front of our office. One of my bosses appeared, and decided to take as many chairs as we needed for our office, and paperwork be damned (a sure sign that this particular boss is close to retirement). The others are still in the hallway in front of our office, and, I suppose, they still don't officially exist.