Today I moved offices. I moved across two buildings to the same building and floor I started on as a student in 1991, along with two of my friends/co-workers who also started out here as co-op students at the exact same time and place(how weird is that?). Yesterday found me furiously scrubbing my old desk and cabinets so that they'd be nice and clean for the new guy moving into my old digs. It was a good thing I did this because I found gross stuff like one of my old gel guitar fingernails (it cracked off when I went to eject a CD in my PC last year) and some old M&M's on the floor behind my UPS(they were still edible!).I faithfully stickered all my boxes and stuff with my name and future office number, being a veteran of many office moves, I know how stuff can disappear on you. At 2:20 or so my PC disappeared (to go to the new place) and around 3:00pm, an hour before move time the head moving guy shows up with a floorplan and he's standing outside my cubicle telling me that all the office numbers written on my stuff are wrong. We've been given the old floorplan and those offices no longer exist. He gives me the new numbers. The trouble is, almost everyone has left the office now because we have no PC's and need to get out of the way for the move to take place. So I had to take the guy around to every person who was moving, get the new numbers and write it down 10 or 16 times on all of their stuff boxes, chairs, screens, cabinets, fans, garbage cans etc.. Except for Slava, who has condensed the contents of his office to two boxes which he has moved himself a few hours before. I actually did a preemptive move of some of my odder items with Slava. My huge office tree (the plant people are not going to like that I moved this, they get upset), my hockey stick and the hologram picture of the old 1920's guy who turns into a devil that kept the cleaning staff from coming anywhere near my office 2 years ago.
Today I head over to the new place and find all my boxes, but no PC's or screens. It's gonna be hard to work without these so I take a walk around the new digs looking for them. They are no where in sight. One of my co-workers, DJ, scored an office with a PMPO (Presumably Messy Previous Occupant) who didn't really clean his up for the new guy like I did. The presumably messy guy actually inherited my old office on my old floor. My buddy is unhappy about this and we can all tell. One of the AD's goes by and makes the mistake of asking him how things are going and 20 minutes later a cleaning crew arrives asking me where DJ's office is
I come back from my search of the new floor and find the confused LAN guy with Slava scratching his head (the LAN guys is scratching his own head, not Slava's).
"I installed them in here yesterday!" He says. That is not good. Maybe someone has mistaken them for the previous occupant's PC's and has taken them back over to my old floor. I take a walk to my old digs two buildings over and find them after awhile in Slava's old empty office. I call the LAN guy and he says he'll come and get them and install them in the new place. The "Move Gremlins" probably did this to screw with me..
When I get back to my new office to start unpacking my boxes I see that the PMPO is over at his old digs conversing with DJ about the unsatisfactory condition he left his office in. I don't know if he's been called over or if he forgot something, but they have a brief conversation which is moot because the Cleaning crew has been through and DJ already picked all the fingernails off the floor and removed the 3 years of muffin debris between the crack in the two connecting portions of the desk.
"Well I did not clean the crack.." says the previous occupant.. This is funny for some reason. I actually cleaned MY crack.. I took a paperclip, straightened it out and ran it through there to get out the build up of crusty debris. (the fact that we could be talking about body parts is not lost on me
Throughout the morning two people an office away have been flirting loudly non-stop for about 2 hours. At one point the guy was threatening the girl that he'd come into work wearing a speedo or something and I felt the need to poke my head around the corner and ask that they not scare us like that on our first day because we're new. Everyone giggles.. I'm making friends. I go back to DJ's office. He's mad and proclaims loudly that the previous occupants cleaning habits leave a lot to be desired (he doesn't exactly say it like that though, he uses a cuss word and the name of that animal we get bacon from). I try to shush him and remind him that we may be embedded amongst 20 of the guy's best Friends but DJ does not care at this point. He's a bit pissed and rightly so I guess..
I hook my PC up, unpack a pile of boxes and the next thing I know it's lunch. I crack a book open while I eat and notice that the flirtymates have resumed their mating ritual because it has been reasonably quiet for awhile. They must have gone away or something. I've always been able to tune stuff like that out if I want so it does not bother me in the least. As long as they change it up and don't repeat themselves too much. It goes on all lunch hour.
DJ comes in my office after lunch to discuss an issue with an application we just rolled out. He pauses while the flirty couple laugh loudly. He comments on this just as loudly. A few minutes later I urge him to come into a conference room with me so we can talk about our project as well as the flirty couple's ability to work and chat nonstop whilst not offending them too badly on our first day
It always takes time to get used to a new place... Still, I think I'm going to like it here. I have a feeling there's a few people on this floor as weird as I am..
If the flirty couple is at it again tomorrow I'm going to go over and break the ice for them so they can go on their first date so I don't have to hear the elaborate mating ritual play out all day. I know it bugs DJ
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