It's a mystery

I work in an office that is in a complex of buildings. I think there are five or six buildings in total across the campus. Our main building is a little up the hill from us, and then there is the building I am in, and the building next door has the deli in it. Then there is the other building that runs parallel to my building and the deli building. This building is the subject of my post.

This building is mysterious.

How can an office building be mysterious you might be asking yourself. Well let me tell you it is.

For one thing I am not really sure anyone works in the building. They have a whole slew of parking spots that are marked as reserved and no one ever parks there. In the nearly five years I have worked here the only people I ever see going in or out of the building is the campus security or workmen that are doing construction on the inside. I think it has been remodeled a dozen times now.

So it is this big building that is occupied but no one is ever there. Perhaps it is because of constant shoddy construction. Perhaps it is actually occupied by a company that trains construction crews. Perhaps it is a company that only works at night. These are all possible scenarios.

Or perhaps it is a company that is secretly manufacturing toxic chemicals in an underground laboratory.

Did I lose you there? Let me explain.

A couple of years ago we all became aware that something was amiss in this building as there was one morning a large number of hazmat vehicles surrounding the building. Large tanker trucks were running hoses into the building and men in plastic suits were running around frantically. I believe we were sent an email telling us to keep clear of the workmen.

You can imagine how confused we all were since we don't work in an area where one would expect to see a hazmat team. These are standard office buildings not some sort of production plant. I mean I think some of my coworkers lunches classify as hazardous materials, but this was ridiculous.

A few days after this happened I was walking to the deli for lunch. The walkway runs beside the mystery building. There is also a little park like strip of grass and trees down in a lower area between the buildings. Or at least it used to be park like.

As I walked by I could not help but notice all of the grass had turned brown and was dead as were all of the trees. There were large tunnel like tubes crisscrossing the ground going into the tank trucks. It really was a chemical spill of some sort.

Of course we never heard what happened. Nothing in the news about some sort of chemical spill or problem. No signs of who occupied the building or what they had done wrong. No health warnings to us either. Just a quick massive cleanup.

After a few years the grass has finally grown back, and the trees are looking healthier, though most are still yellow and not green yet. There still is no sign of anyone in the building aside from the occasional construction crew.  It still remains a mystery.

I know I could probably use Google and figure it out, but I sort of like it being a mystery. I like being able to speculate about what goes on over there. I prefer to think that I work next door to some sort of secret evil villain's research installation.

What? Like you wouldn't think that was cool.