An alarming "office"

The Fire Inspector was patrolling around the McCann Center late last week for the annual inspection of our Athletics Home. Our excellent facilities coordinator made us aware of this, and noted that we should make sure we are up to code in terms of not using unauthorized extension cords, or anything else that might pose a “fire hazard.” My “office” in the McCann Center is more like a storage shed, a repository for old sneakers (which, for those keeping score at home, go to a very worthy charity organization), bags of Gatorade, cones, measuring wheels, and boxes of gear that are in varying states of being handed out to the team. This “office” got the attention of the Fire Inspector, who deemed that the chaotic mess needed to be tidied up a bit. There you go! Track Office = Fire Hazard. The alarming truth. Being a Rule Follower by nature, I remedied this situation in less than 24 hours by doing the following:

--Handed out gear to the track team, and then had them store the leftover boxes in our storage area (side note: This area is not the most tidy either, but I guess it did not warrant alarm)

--Called my Friendly Shoe Donation lady, who gladly obliged by coming by on Friday morning to get the overflow boxes of shoes for her Dimes For Downs Foundation. Always great to see Kim and her energetic son Matthew, back behind the McCann Center, where we do the Shoe Handoff a few times each year. (Side note: Thanks to Omar Perez and Matt Baffuto for helping me lug the boxes and boxes and bags and bags of shoes down the stairs and into the car).

So now the track “office” is a less cluttered version than last week. Of course! Within moments of cleaning the “office” out, I started receiving more shoe donations. “Sorry to burden you” was the general sentiment as more old sneakers found their way into the “office” … but it is hardly a “burden” to collect the old shoes, even if it means being put on notice for a few minutes by a well-meaning Fire Inspector. Keep the old sneakers coming, and I’ll keep the “office” as clutter-free as possible (yeah right). OK!