red-light district

The newsroom has been blessed with a new digital clock the width of 1 1/2 ceiling tiles that hangs over the copy desk and glows bright red. I mean, it's a good three feet, if not four, and it hangs about a foot from the ceiling. It's just a clock and nothing else -- in big, red numbers. It's so bright, in fact, that it has turned the cubicles under it red, and it is so big and conspicuous, in fact, that people cannot help but exclaim over it. Some excerpts:

* "Talk about working in a red-light district!"
* "10:00 never looked so bright."
* "It's 9 o'clock!" (or whatever time it happens to show)
* "Anyone know what time it is?"

The story behind the giant clock is that its predecessor was not synched to the computers, and we didn't know we were late because the clock was always 10 minutes behind. Now, THAT clock's predecessor was synched to the computers, but it broke. So now the paper has installed the new one, which is synched to the clock. Nobody, apparently, anticipated such a monstrosity of a clock.

Of course, it clock business had to happen the ONLY day I was late to work. I showed up after battling school traffic, walked in and made a snarky comment about the giant clock. Then, one of the copy eds looked up and said, "yup. It is 4:34." Crap. Four minutes late.

I have a picture of this clock, and I'll post it as soon as I figure out how to not make it poster-sized. :O