15 April, 2005

Maps of toxicity

For the last three days, I've ended my working day with bloodshot, stinging eyes (my own) and somewhat reddened skin.
Returning from a meeting just now, I was struck by a strong smell of solvents in my office, and made the connection.

We took delivery of several hundred freshly-printed campus maps on Tuesday, and they're stacked in boxes only a couple of metres from my desk. Think of the smell of a brand-new glossy leaflet. Multiply by a couple of orders of magnitude.
Somehow I hadn't been noticing it when I arrived each morning, nor at lunch time, but I presume the chemical has been released as the afternoon sun and PCs heated the room past a certain threshold.

I'm going home. Now. I think I'll leave the office window open over the weekend, too.