What a day

[azleaneo.livejournal.com]

Late today I got asked to go over to the reconciliation department because of a weird smell. Sure enough it smelled like burnt electronics. The guy from Support (basically onsite handyman/mailroom) and a electrician from the property management company were there investigating the smell to make sure it wasn't from the AC or the lights.
I checked the computer and it didn't come from there, but the monitor vaguely smelled like it. I removed the monitor, but the smell still lingered at this girl's desk.

We checked everything electrical in a 5 foot radius, for at least 45 minutes. I went to where I had put the monitor, and the monitor no longer smelled like it. Hmm.

I called over a guy who was in the nearby accounting department, and came over and said that it smelled like a Sharpie marker. Sure enough, the girl (who had left for the day before I went over there) had decorated a little cardboard airplane (our company gives these out, they have our logo on them) entirely in black marker, and the smell had permeated through the department.

So the moral of the story is:
If you work around computers and electronics, that smell smells like burnt electronics.
If you work around markers, that smell smells like markers.
If you call the property management company's electrician out to investigate a weird smell, he's going to charge you his minimum hours in full...