I could say I work in a nest of snakes...

[quasigeostrophy]

...and I wouldn't be making a political commentary about my office-mates. At least four times during last spring, summer, and fall this happened. Today, I got my first visitor of this year. I work in a corner office of the ground floor, two feet from a levee holding up the narrow strip of earth between the retention pond behind our building and the building itself. I just got up from my desk to go out to the lab, and almost stepped on a young water snake very well camouflaged on the carpet outside my office door. It was about the size of a pencil in diameter, and about 10 inches long. I have no general fear of snakes, but I really don't want them continually visiting my office. The facilities manager and I scooped it into a ball jar - one of the hardware engineers upstairs wants to show it to his son's class, and then he'll release it outside by the retention pond.

Comments

[circumspectly.livejournal.com]

i. would. have. shit. myself.

'nuff said.

[catzen.livejournal.com]

How darling! I love snakes. I once rescued a small gopher snake from the lawn outside my old office where they used huge, scary lawn mowers (so I thought it best to take it somewhere else). My workplace was Moffett Field, so there was tons of wide open space with marsh and grassland where the snake would stand a much better chance.

Before I went out to take the snake to safer pastures, I brought it into the office to show folks. Not everyone was thrilled with my decision. :-) Unfortunately my asshole supervisor wasn't there: as I learned later, he was deathly afraid of snakes. Then, I took the poor, under-appreciated creature out to a suitable habitat point as far away from evil machinery as I could find.

[queensheba.livejournal.com]

Isn't it ironic that he showed up on St. Patrick's Day? "That'll teach you to drive ME out of Ireland!" Glad it was a happy ending for the snake and humans alike:)

[boubabe.livejournal.com]

I'm so jealous. I never get any wildlife at work except for the very danger "nihon no seito" also known as the "Japanese student."