Called into the Principal's Office

I hadn't unpacked my bag yet, so my camera was with me at work. Our building had put up the Holiday decorations while I was gone, so I went to go take a picture of the tree for our employee newsletter. And maybe one of the stuffed white tigers staring at the stuffed baby penguins to complain about on the Internet, but nevermind.

Security guard walks up to me:

"I'm sorry about this, but we are on camera, so I have to tell you. All photography must be cleared by the Building in advance."

I asked who I should speak with in the office and he gave me a name. I walked over to the office. Assistant manager lady came out and I introduced myself. I explained that I had taken three pictures for our employee newsletter and understood from Security that was a problem.

She said, "We need to know in advance. You could be anybody taking pictures for any reason."

I understood "any reason" to mean "so that you can blow up the place".

"OK," I said. "So it is a security issue, as opposed to a copyright issue."

"It could also be a copyright issue," she replied. "What are you going to use them for?"

Apparently, using them for an employee newsletter is fine as long as the newsletter is only for "use in our space". So sending it to our employees outside of Chicago, "would have to go through corporate first".

"It isn't worth it. I will delete them right now."

I was going to say something nice about our Landlord to all of our employees and all of our retirees. Now they are all going to hear it on the Grapevine. Because I stood and shouted about it in our lobby.

The other thing I learned today is how our receptionist knows everything.