The Move!!!

I have now been working for the Pink Elephant for 4.5 years and in that time we have moved office buildings 3 times, changed floors within the same building 4 times, and to top it all we don't even have our own desks! We have something quaint called "The Hotelling System" where we call up the secretary asking them (sometimes begging/bribing them even) to keep a desk for us to work. In simple terms: we, consultants, move a lot, and no, we don't stop moving.

Desk to desk moves (horizontal moves) are not too big a deal, floor to floor (vertical moves) are a bit more challenging, but still it is only a half-day event, but today our department of 38 big-wigs (33 of whom were "out of office reply"s), 2 minnows, and 2 secretaries were packing and preparing to move 3 blocks "back" into the office building that we were in less than 2 years ago.

Why do we move so much?

Starting from 1pm we all got into our "movers' gloves", unfolded all the cardboard boxes stacked along the walls of the office area (and beyond), pulled out our duck tapes (wow, sounds like we are shooting b-grade porn!), and attacked the cabinets in the "archives room" . (yes, we preach 'paperless' to our clients, but we are very much "analog" -- don't ask, we sell BS for a living, what do you expect?)

Now readers, when I say the "archive room" I am talking about one of those "Host Server" rooms at microsoft or at AOL -- vast temperature regulated rooms, to keep the papyrus from falling apart, with sliding cabinets. We are talking LOADS of boxes here!! And the few directors, minnows, and the secretaries worked side by side to get them feckers out of the cabinet into the boxes. If Carl Marx was alive today and saw us work in unison he would have said:"my god, this is what I was talking about, look Lenin, and especially YOU Starlin, see this, this is what I was talking about in my Manifesto!"

In the end it took us nearly 5 hours to pack our department, throw out the rubbish and get ready to be moved by the "professionals" over the weekend. I wiped my brow sat down next to my college, chatted for a bit, only to be greeted by my personal assistant, Mye Crosof Toffice.

*Blink, You have mail, Blink, You have mail*

Thank you silly personal assistant, I am "team building" and working on "collegiality" here with my colleague, what do you want? Huh?

Shit, mail, better open it...

"Dear All Members of CB,
Thank you for helping out with the packing of our department, please be prompt on Monday morning at 9:30am when we begining to UNPACK all that we packed up today. Thank you for your cooperation.
Lovely Lovely Secretary-who-does-all-your-late-expense-sheets-for-you.

Shit! I have to unpack all that shite on Monday morning!!!!!!

Right, I'm pulling a sickie!