How many people does it take?

So we're finally getting a sink in the break room. For the past three months we've had to do our dishes in the bathroom. Very awkward under any circumstance but made worse by the placement of the paper towel machine.

How can that be a problem, you ask? Well...it's like this: we used to have a regular grab-the-towel type machine. It was replaced with a hands free dispenser. One of the anti-swine flu measures the building managers installed. The problem is that they put it so close to the sink that when you're washing dishes, or hands or whatever else you care to wash the thing keeps dispensing towels. So by the time you're done there is a pile of p.t. on the floor. You can make it run a bit less if you perch partly on the counter and lean at an uncomfortable angle. Which, I can say from experience, makes people new to the building look at you strangely when the walk in. Or, as happened to me, it will make them walk in, look at you askance and then back away slowly out the door. I'm not sure why with such a look of alarm, and slowly- I was not doing anything that looked dangerous. It just looked at little....odd.

Anyway, back to the story:
They booked six guys and three days to put a sink in. They're putting it in on the same wall that backs onto the bathroom sink to make the plumbing part easier. I did wonder why it would take so many people, and so much time. Here is what has happened to date:

9:00 am Wednesday. Six guys come in and partially cut a hole in the plaster. Then they all stand and stare at it. After some serious staring they come to my office (I'm the only one on this side of the building) and say they'll be back.

11:00. They return. And finish cutting the whole. Then they go into the back of the building. Turns out the pipes are there. They stay in the back for half and hour and then come and say they're leaving for lunch.

2:00 They stop by to say there is a problem with the water supply. Then they leave again, and don't return the rest of the day.

9:00 am Thursday One guy, not one of the original six, comes to the door to be let in. I let him in and he says "I'm here to hammer something. I won't be long". True to his word his is not long. Loud, grant you, but not long. This is where things still stand. A big hole in the wall and plaster dust on the floor. And a general perfume of glue. Smells like super glue, actually. I really really hope it isn't super glue.

I'm beginning to think that three days wasn't long enough.