On my way in to work this morning, I was listening to Neal Boortz, our local Libertarian talk show guy and he was badmouthing BMW's. He stated the anyone driving a BMW wished it were a Mercedes. I have this blue 2001 BMW Z3 that I was driving, with the top down, on a beautiful Georgia morning, and at that time I wouldn't have been in any other car, thank you. I disagree with you on this one Neal.
Today was the day of the big move at TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). At least once a year we play musical employees. Supposedly, this is to save real estate expenses. I've been here in Atlanta, in the same building, for 17 years, and we have saved so much in real estate expenses that the landlords should be paying us by now. We move people out of our building into another building so we can move people from another building into our building. Then a year later, we move people out so we can move the people back in that we moved out in the last move. Is this clear? I think that the manager in charge of real estate has a brother-in-law in the moving business.
This time, the move affects me. They've decided to put an entire department from another building into our building and they're gonna put 'em in the end of the building where I have lived, in the same office, for seven years. I get to move downstairs into an office with my team lead. Good news - the office has a window. Bad news - it's on the same floor as my manager.
Being a techno-prima-donna and a slob, I have accumulated a lot of stuff over the years. For the past three days I have been going through stuff and pitching what I won't need anymore. I still have instructor guides and foils from when I was an instructor many years ago. I woke up sick this morning, but since they were gonna move me this afternoon or tomorrow, I had to go in and pack up the rest of my things.
Every Tuesday, at 10:00 AM we have a team conference call to discuss problems, I/T requests, and projects. This usually lasts about 30 minutes. Recently, my manager decided to sit in on the call, which adds about 10 more minutes to the meeting. Plus, I have to be careful not to make any sarcastic remarks as he doesn't really appreciate my sense of humor. We also have picked up a new team member and he's not really sure how to code his SHTS yet. He just doesn't have his SHTS together yet.
For those of you who came in late, SHTS is our Stupid Hourly Tracking System that we use to track how we spend our time. I discussed SHTS in More detail in this post back on May 1. ( Hey! Blogger's archive links work again.)
Our new guy doesn't quite have the nuances on how we make up our accurately code our time. Fortunately, our manager doesn't either. Anyway, off our manager went on a twenty minute explanation of why we use SHTS and how we were supposed to support our customers. In the true spirit of a bureaucracy, we were not supposed to give our users excellent support because if we did and performed too well, upper management would think that we were overstaffed and reduce headcount! The message I got from this meeting was mediocrity was the key.
The meeting went on for over an hour.
I was able to put the phone on speaker and pack up some of my stuff, but, I needed to pitch some stuff, and the trash receptacles were outside my office. I also needed another box. Finally, the meeting ended and I was able to finish packing. Got all my books into three boxes and everything else in my desk.
About that time, the person in charge of the move came by to doublecheck on what was being moved.
Me: Uh, my desk, my chair, my PC, and one bookshelf.
Her: Your desk?
Me: Yep. My desk.
Her: I thought that was going to the warehouse.
Me: No, it's going downstairs to my team lead's office.
Her: Not to the warehouse?
Me: No. Downstairs to my team lead's office.
Her: So there will be two desks in that office?
Me: Yeah. Mine and his.
Her: Aren't there already two desks in there?
Me: Yes. The old one will have to be moved out so we can move mine in.
This was just the start. Then we had to talk about my bookshelf and the other desk which was going to the warehouse. Now we came to the old coax attached dumb terminal (which didn't attach to anything and quit working around the time we pulled out all the coax) and the old desktop laser printer that needed a fan, which we couldn't afford to replace.
Her: What are you gonna do about them?
Me: I'm gonna leave 'em here.
Her: No. You have to get rid of them.
Me: They're no good. I don't want them. Throw 'em in a dumpster.
Her: No. You have to take care of them. I only do furniture. Call the facilities person. She'll get rid of them.
About this time I felt like saying they're freaking paper weights. Leave them for the next occupants of this office. I'm a cripple. I shouldn't have to be moving. Don't you value Diversity (All hail Diversity!)?
I figgered I'd just forget about them. Ooops! I goofed! Unfortunately, I had to pick up another box from the pile right outside of her office. 'Have you called facilities yet?' Damn! Busted!
So, I call the facilities person and she says no, you have to call asset management. I called him and he said that it wasn't really his responsibility, but he'd come get 'em and hide 'em somewhere. He works for the same manager as I do so we can work together.
So now it's after 12:00, I feel like crap, and I've still got to unplug my PC and get it ready to move. Finally, around 1:00, I have everything packed up and labeled. Now I can go home and crash, which I do. I slept most of the afternoon. I'm feeling much better and not yet sure if I'm going to work tomorrow. And if I do, whether I should go to my new office or to the warehouse.
Not really sure where my desk will be.
Posted by denny at July 30, 2002 08:54 PM