Ramblings on libraries and life upon the wicked stage

I’m picking up bad vibrations.
They’re giving me palpitations:
Bad, bad, bad, bad vibrations!

Yes, the sparkly new learning centre has turned against me, clearly determined to drive me away.  For the past few weeks, the floor in my office has been vibrating, sending shudders through my desk, my chair and my body, and sometimes causing the shelves behind me to rattle.  Some of my colleagues have also been experiencing the vibrations, though some of them are only aware of the phenomenon when it visibly affects an inanimate object, such as causing water bottles to shake or computer monitors to jiggle from side to side.  And those who are aware of the vibrations react differently.  Unfortunately, I seem to be particularly sensitive to them.

My desk is, for reasons as yet unclear, at the epicentre of the vibration phenomenon, as the effect is felt most strongly in my seat and the seat opposite.  This is unfortunate because the vibrations appear to be on a frequency that resonates with me more than other people, affecting (I assume) my inner ear and causing rather unpleasant effects.  I feel the vibrations throughout my body, but it feels more uncomfortable through my upper torso than my limbs or head.  It makes me feel jittery and on edge, and when the vibrations are at their worst, I feel nauseous.  After a particularly bad day, the symptoms can stay with me long after I leave work, so that it feels as though I’m still vibrating even when I retire to bed.  This is most definitely Not Good.

An experiment in swapping desks began after one day when I had to disappear off several times as I really thought I was going to be sick.  Unfortunately, the first person to swap experienced the same issues and ended the day feeling headachey and nauseous.  The next person, however, did not appear to feel any ill effects, and was only aware of vibrations because of the juddering computer monitor.  Sadly, I could still feel the vibrations quite strongly – though not AS strongly – at the desks I swapped to, and we ran out of places to try very quickly, as I require specialised software to do my job, which is only installed on certain machines.

The issue was reported to the people in charge of the building, and soon a whole host of people were sitting at my desk, feeling or seeing the vibrations and their effects for themselves.  Ripples were observed on everyone’s obligatory bottles of water, the sound of the shelves was assessed and different seating positions were experimented with.  Some men from the company who built the shiny new learning centre came to the office, crawled around in the floor and emerged none the wiser.  Everyone agreed that the vibrations were real, not a figment of my imagination, but nobody knew what to do about them.

I have now been moved much further away, with the software that I need now installed at one of the hot desks.  I can still feel the vibrations, since I am so very attuned to them, but they don’t make me feel unwell.  I do feel a little isolated from the rest of my team, but that is better than ending the day wanting to be sick.  Rumours have been percolating through the building – the International Office staff are also experiencing vibration issues on the floor below ours, a member of Helpdesk staff overheard the builders admit that they know what the problem is (but not how to fix it), an engineer has been called.  We are fairly certain that the air circulation system is at fault, as the vibrations’ arrival coincided with a change to this system, but beyond this we are in the dark.  I am hopeful that I’ll soon be returning to my accustomed desk, but for the moment I’m just glad to be further away from those bad vibrations.