break in

My office building/classroom building was broken into last week.

The media hasn't had anything on it; either it's not important enough to rise to the level of a local news story, or, more likely, the cops and university are trying to keep it quiet.

A bunch of stuff was stolen - computer equipment and certain pieces of lab equipment that might be useful in methamphetamine manufacture. The thieves obviously knew where to go; they crawled through the drop ceiling to get to one room, but other rooms were left untouched (including my office, thank God. I had one of my personal laptops in there).

So today, we get a sternly worded memo reminding us that it is OUR responsibility - or rather, the responsibility of the person who leaves last - to check the doors to be sure they are locked.

And I'm sorry, but #$)(*#. If I'm here 'til 7 (as I am some nights), when I've been here since 7 am, they want me to walk around the building (in the dark no less) and check all the doors? Hello? Do we not have a security force on campus?

Obviously we don't; they are supposed to OPEN the doors by 7 am and I'm still unlocking doors for students who come to class at 8 and find themselves locked out.

But it pisses me off. Yes, I understand the need to police our area. But - it's not part of our job description. We have campus police which I guess we cannot put our trust in. (One of the cops acknowledged that he did a drive-by at 4 am on the morning after the burglary, saw lights on in the building, but didn't bother to investigate. Um, this is the building where the environmentalists work. This is the building where the lights are all shut off when the last person leaves. You know that. And you didn't check? So now we're expected to take an extra 15 minutes at the end of the day and play rent-a-cop?)

I expect they will probably come up with a schedule - a rota - where each day one of us must police the building at 8 pm or whenever. Never mind that we may already have been home for the day. Never mind that we might have night meetings. It's going to be another responsibility heaped onto our already overfilled plates, becuase the campus rent-a-cops are too lazy to come up here and actually get out of their cars to check the doors.

They think, in fact, that entry was gained through a window that a student unlocked IN PREPARATION for the break in (they think it was students. I hope they catch them and throw the book at them). It wasn't like a faculty member opened the window and then "Dee dee dee!" forgot to close it.

It bugs me that it's being treated like it's OUR fault the building was broken into. I suspect that that will be used as an excuse not to replace the missing equipment, or somehow take the cost of repairing the damages out of our operating budget.

But isn't that the way? It's easier to point a finger at honest people who are already stretched to their limit and say "Why didn't you forsee this? Why didn't you take steps to prevent this?" than it is to actually catch the person who did it.

Yeah? I got your "steps to prevent" right here. What do you want - for us to arm ourselves and stand watch in the building? Entry could have just as well been gained by someone breaking a window - we're secluded enough no one could hear it - and unlocking it that way.

Look - just because I have balances in my lab that are attractive to meth cooks doesn't make me a criminal. Don't treat me like one. Even if I'm conveniently here and you don't know who actually took them.

I will say - if I get new balances, I'm buying a carbon-steel bike lock and locking them into the cabinet. I don't care if it makes it hard for people to honestly borrow the balances; I don't care if it makes it hard on the students. Them's the breaks. And if I'm going to catch crap for a CRIMINAL breaking into MY BUILDING and taking STUFF THAT DOESN"T BELONG TO HIM, then I'm going to pass that crap on to others. Sorry.