It's Been A Bad Day (but I'll take a picture)

Sometimes 140 characters just isn't enough to capture a day's experience fully. It started with a 2 minute stop at UCL (University College London) that was far longer than expected.

I'm due to begin studying Psychology at UCL this September but before my place is confirmed I have to prove that I have met the conditions of my offer. I dutifully scanned my relevant certificates and emailed them to the admissions department. They informed me that emailed copies were (understandably) not sufficient and they required either the originals or copies verified by my college. Loathe to entrust valuable documents to the vagaries of the Royal Mail I began attempting to in touch with my college. It seems they had shut up shop for the summer, yet failed to provide any details as to if/when they will be reopening.

This is what lead to today's visit to my prospective place of study, in order to deliver my certificates by hand. What I had envisioned being a quick stop at the main entrance to hand over my documents, turned into over an hour of being sent from one building to the next in a fruitless search for a faculty office which no one appears to have ever encountered before. Finally I entrusted my package to the University's internal mail and left with my fingers crossed.

This of course lead to me arriving 5 minutes late for work. Normally this would have passed without note but not today. As I arrived at the cinema's entrance I was just in time to see the entrance shutters finish their descent and shut me out.

The only times these shutters close are i) the last customer has left at the end of the night and it's time to go home, or ii) the building is being evacuated.

After making my way down to the meeting point to join my colleagues I learnt that an electrical fault had lead to all of us being stood outside in the cold. For 40 minutes.

When we finally made it back inside I quickly changed into my uniform in time to come down and help deal with the several hundred customers stood waiting downstairs.

Most people were understanding and quick to deal with but there are always those few difficult ones. The ones who seem to view the events as some kind of deliberate attempt on my part to spoil not only their evening, but possibly their very life. With these you just set your apology levels to stun and raise your shield's against their barrage with a big fake smile.

So my entire evening was dealing with the aftermath of an evacuation (which happened before I even started) and doing my best to just keep on smiling at the people I felt like screaming at. My favourite complaint of the night? "The seats are at the wrong pitch" What?

On the plus side, I did meet Gary Newman/Numan(?). Which was nice.

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