If you never hear from me again...

Well, things are pretty much par for the course here at work.

The ceiling is threatening to collapse.

I need to start keeping a digital camera at work for situations like this.

The IT department is in the basement. Above us is the filing department and customer service. Their ground level room used to be two separate areas with a rather sturdy wall between them.

A couple years ago, the wall was taken down in order to create a single, large room for an open office plan. In place of the wall (Which may have been load bearing, the contractors who tore it down couldn't tell) they left a foot wide strip of drywall, the jagged end of which was finished with some moulding. This meant there was a strip of what used to be wall running along the ceiling from one end of the room to the other. No support beams were installed, and they would have been expensive and broken up the room.

This 30 some foot strip of wall remnant (anyone know the proper term for this?) is now sagging, threatening to buckle and collapse. It's also straining the wall sections that it connects to. There are a number of cracks all along the plaster.

This sagging was first noticed today, and the center of this edging is now a good foot lower than the ends. The sag is distorting the hanging ceiling, and raining a dust of drywall on the staff.

Now here is why I'm not happy with this.

My desk is in the basement, directly under the sagging section of wall. There is debate about the composition of this chunk of construction. If it's largely moulding and drywall, then it's theorized that a collapse would create a mess in the room above, perhaps leaving a hole in the exterior wall or damaging the stairwell. This does not distress me much, as I can get out the back door unless the collapse seriously damages the rest of the building.

If this chunk of building has some substantial planks of wood, then the collapse could create what amounts to a massive spear piercing the floor into the basement below. This would result in one or more shafts of wood and drywall plunging through the floor and into my work area.

Did I mention my desk is right under this bending and bowing part of the building?

Naturally, if I hear so much as a creak form above, I'm running out the back door as fast as I can.

On a side note, I would like to state that I prefer not to be kept on life support if there is no hope of recovery.

Which reminds me, I need to go over that organ donor stuff if I get home alive tonight. My eyes are too messed up to be of any use, but my other internal organs could be recycled.