ON RESPECT

Last summer, my office had what we in the business call a "mold problem." As in "mold is growing everywhere because my a/c isn't functioning correctly, and that's a problem." I let the facilities staff know; they came by with a ladder, took out the ceiling tile, said "here's the problem," and then never fixed it.

They put in a short-term fix, sure, and a custodian sprayed my office with bleach (ruining several of my personal belongings), but at least the toxic mold had been dealt with.

Until, of course, this summer. After my week's vacation, I came back and noticed that it was noticeably humid in my office. In addition, I had some waterspots on the ceiling. I let facilities know. The Assistant Director looked and it. And then nothing was done. No dehumidifier was purchased, no plastic was put down, nothing. Now, my couch is ruined, the mold has spread a dangerous amount, other rooms are being affected - and nothing is being done by facilities.

My bosses have been very supportive. One is giving up her lunch today to purchase a dehumidifier to at least blunt the problem, since no one seems to be in a rush to repair it. I'll drag the couch out myself and let another department deal with it, because there's no way I'm keeping it in the office.

The point is - how did this happen? Is it because I'm entry-level, no one realizes that I might actually like to work out of my office? If this happened to another administrator, wouldn't the problem have been fixed sooner? While I don't feel it was intentional, I definitely feel disrespected by the whole process, and will cite this in any future exit interviews as one of the reasons I end up leaving.