h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So there you are one morning approaching your workplace, with more than the usual amount of trepidation on account of being grabbed by an agitated coworker down the street and being told that there's a tax inspection going on.

The abiding image of which is from telly a while back where men in balaclavas with conspicuous machine guns had all the hapless staffmembers lying face down in the snow for three hours.

The pile of marking you've been putting off for at least a week, however, is pulling you forward ("I love my job"), so gingerly you enter the front door, noting as you do so that The Sign seems to have disaapeared...

... along with, you discover as you proceed inwards, the other signs, the noticeboard and the smoking bucket.

Also, your doorcode doesn't work. So you ring the bell, whereupon the door swings open and you are seized and jerked across the threshold in a somewhat premontary manner while being whispered at about the advisability of not going out again.

The place is dead. There are no teachers in the teachers' room. The photocopier is silent. The toilet is not in use. Your immediate boss is there, though, and has been for hours. And as a result of being locked in is sufferring a severe bout of claustrophobia, getting tighter lipped and more jumpy by the second. By the time, somewhat later, she is released to the third floor in order to teach she has been reduced to practically chewing the furniture, and has succeeded in producing in you a strong desire to get out and have a cigarrette.

Which is unfortunate, as you can't. At this point you've actually finisheed wading through your acccumulated backlog and urgent measuress are needed so you pootle across to human resourses to find the smokers, on the pretext of finding out what is going on. You end up hanging out the window with the big guns of recruitment being given the lowdown on the day's exitement.

Which turns out to involve a three way war between various goevernment and local government departments over the ownership of the building. We are hiding, apparently, because one doesn't just open up doors to beurocratic inspections, particularly not when they are being conducted by the department we are not leasing out officespace from.

Which is considerably less exciting than the prospect of being menaced by armed soldiers, but then life is full of little disappointments.

That day you go home in the knowledge of a job well done, especially the bit where you had to explain to your teenagers that we'd rather they didn't charge out onto the landing for a cigarrette during the break. Life goes back to normal for... oooh... a whole week.

And the next Friday, the school decamps to location two altogether. A temporary measure while Inspection 2 (Eviction) takes place, but sadly we reckoned without the men with blowtorches welding the doors shut. By Monday, therefore, we have colonized the otheer schools, though we are traipsing back to teach, sidling passt the policeman they now have stationed inside the door with a codeworsd which is presumably the name of a comapny in the building who are paying rent to the right department.

Now, it appears we've given up on that altogether and have decided to colonise the other school altogether. And it's amazing how many people were fitted into the other building. Open what was once a classroom up and you'll find a whole department and their computers ion there ("Oh. Who are you?" "We're the software department." "Software? We produce software?" You gotta love the boss's diversity).

The latest rumour is that we have, in fact, found a new location. Shame, that, you've been trying to resign from the management part of your job on a daily basis. On the otherhand, looks like we are going to conflate three schools into three, so you could be in with a chance after all. But then given the rate you're being found little jobs to do at the moment, perhaps not. Sigh.

I bet it's not the building with the en suitee swimming pool, sauna and gym though.

Solnushka, you lead a very 'intriguing' lifestyle over there. Do keep us posted.
B4

It's not that intriguing really. It'll get sorteed out in the end and in the meeantime it doesn't really matter where we teach. In the meantime, all the foreigners are enjoying themselves running around and wringing their hands about the possiblilityy of losing their jobs, while conveniently ignoring the fact that they are always the last people to be inconvenienced and it is not they but the Russian staff who will get screwed if anybody does. *rolls eyes*

So they found a new building. Lovely, apparently. Gracious psudeo classical facade sort of thing, interior entirely redecorated with elegant style, and everything. Lots of space for teachers and staff, and a huge room for parties.

Just before the hire deal was signed, they let a teacher have a look at the place.

In the prospective classrooms, the ceilings sloped, contacting the walls at somewhere below shoulder height.

The rest of the space was dotted with pillars.

My (immediate) boss estimated that you could comfortably get into one large room aproximately one teacher and one whiteboard, and two students able to see the board and not be in danger if concussing themselves every tiime they stood up.

So we are, instead, going for the other possibility. The one which is bang in the middle of Lubyanka. Actually, opposite the KGB building entrance (well, one of them). And next to (possibly) the most notorious bar in Moscow - a red light district all on its own.