New Places, Old Faces

Ok, first -- thanks for all the comments! I just got home from yoga and am exhausted but wanted to get the post out that I wrote right before I left for yoga and what a motivator to see all the nice things you lovely readers have to say!


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Well, I’m officially moved into the new office. Lots of interesting things today.


We’ll start out with Mister Man. Around 9:45, he woke up screaming and crying. His tummy hurt, and it was not easy to calm him down. Fifteen minutes later, he was up again. And fifteen minutes later. It continued this way until I asked if he wanted Mommy or Daddy to sleep with him to help him (nothing was comforting him), which we’ve never done. He only wanted me (awwww), so I “slept” in his bed until I finally called the doctor at 11. Of course, that was the last time he woke up. When the doctor called back, he was finally asleep – I’d found the magic place on his tummy to massage and apparently that did it. According to the doctor, the left side (I knew it wasn’t his appendix btw or would have been at the hospital by 10) is generally gas or something trying to work its way through. Can you imagine that ER trip? “Ma’am, your son’s fine. He just needs to toot.”

Needless to say, I was a little tired when I woke up earlier than normal to get to work. Today’s trip in took me just over a half hour, which is less time than the old work took me. Yay, already!

When I got to my cube, I realized how tight they really are. We have no size differentiation anymore, except for the SVPs, and the cubes are tiny with low walls and you can see everyone. Even the SVPs don’t have much more space, just enough for a chair. Because of the configuration, I have six people within a four foot radius of me.

I also had a bag sitting on my desk. Hmmm… pretty unassuming, isn't it?

I opened up the bag and discovered:


While I don’t wear glasses, a lens cleaner frequently comes in handy. At least I think that’s what this was.

And:

Yep, because I refuse to wear glasses, I need a magnifier to read the type. And a ruler because rulers are just cool.

And:

Gotta love the mugs. And of course it has my company’s logo – remind me to tell you my funny logo mug story from last week soon. Apparently while they say you can’t drink at your desk, they will provide you with a mug. Just don’t use it at the office.

And:

Ooooo, now this is cool. It’s my very own Bluetooth. Now I just have to figure out how to use it. I’m assuming it works with my phone. And you wonder why the admins were complaining that these goodie bags were disappearing off people’s desks. (Although that alone, I found quite depressing.)

And lastly, there was a coupon for $3 for the company café – btw we have a café not a cafeteria. Quite upscale, no? I didn’t use it today, as I didn’t know that we’d have such a lovely treat, so I brownbagged it. At my desk. And yes, the HR guy happened to walk past as I was eating – drat the luck – and lectured me about eating at my desk. I guess that is one they’re going to enforce. I had my afternoon orange in the café while editing a deck.

There were some unique issues though. They built the building like a cheap hotel, apparently, and they neglected to factor that in when they decided to have wall-mounted adjustable monitors for everyone. If anyone with enough girth – and it doesn’t take much, mind you – walked down the aisle, the monitors shook, and you could feel the vibrations in your chair. The first time I wondered if it was more earthquake, but it was far too frequent. After much experimentation, we discovered that the shaking monitor syndrome was mitigated by pushing it all the way up to the wall and pinning it there. Voila, motion sickness averted!

Oh, and we have headsets for conference calls since speakerphones are banned. Considering people on the other end of my phone conversations could hear other people talking when no one was on speakerphone, that’s definitely a good call. The not so good call? One desk, one headset. That goes in your ear. That I’m supposed to share with two other people. Not that I have anything against the two lovely women I’m sharing my cube with, but some things just aren’t meant to be shared. Anything that goes in an orifice falls into that category in my book. Even our ops centers have a different headset for every employee on every shift. Maybe I can trade my Bluetooth for my own headset. Or maybe I’ll just use the handset instead.

Speaking of which, I also couldn’t get on my phone at work. Because I share my desk with two other people – we’re supposed to work varying days but it isn’t calculated correctly – my physical phone there isn’t tied to my personal phone line. I have to log in to send my phone to the desk. And the login instructions didn’t work. Up went my first flag to join the sea of others. (On day one, they have about two flags for every person so that when you have a technical issue, the guys know who to go to -- apparently they've had a few issues as people have moved in so far. Comforting, really.) Fortunately, that was fixed fairly easily. They had the wrong password in the brochure we had sitting at our desks, so I just had to get my password reset.

Then I couldn’t access the network with my computer. Considering that all my files are on the shared drive and email is pretty critical to what I do, that was a problem. Up went flag number two. After three reboots and some fiddling by a tech guy, I was finally able to connect. Yay!

Later, I had to print something. The printers are actually pretty cool. I’m constantly irritated by the people who print things and never pick them up, then print again and don’t pick that up, etc. It’s a huge waste of paper and in my mind at least, rude! Now we can print to any printer on our floor, and the job is sent to the network. We then swipe our badge at the printer we choose, select the job we want to print (of ours) and print. The only problem is that the printer tool that (per the instructions) “will automatically recognize your office location” had no idea where I was located, so it wouldn’t let me choose a printer. Up went flag number three! Again, the nice tech guys fiddled and found a way to manually enter the printer. The thing that made me feel better at least is that each time they did the “huh, that should have worked. This is weird” kind of a comment that made me feel like less of a moron.

Then my admin delivered a new toy. It’s called my soft phone. Up went flag number 4, as the tech guys have to configure it.

Has anyone ever seen one of these things before? It's actually far cooler than it looks, I swear. Whenever I'm logged into the network at work now (using my remote access, of course!), I log into the software, plug in this funky looking device, and my work phone is automatically routed to this gizmo. I no longer have to leave the voicemail on my phone of “Hi, I’m rarely in the office, so don’t bother leaving a message. Send me an email or call my Blackberry.” Admittedly, I say it nicer, but it’s still an odd kind of message. I can call in or receive calls, and it even flashes cool colors when it rings – or so I’ve been told. I love technology!

I also dropped off my registration for the fitness center. We have a regular Bally’s down there now. I didn’t have time to do an orientation – I got there at 7am and left at 4:56 because I really, really couldn’t deal with traffic if I left any later – so I didn’t see the whole thing, but I’m excited to have it in my building. I figure I’ll join and feel good about it but rarely spend time there. Usually I’m in too much of a rush with work to go to the gym. It’s literally been probably seven years since I’ve been to the gym at work because I’d rather go home and see my family or relax then spend more time at work. Do I get to feel good just for turning in my registration?

I finally started home, much later than I’d hoped, of course. Supposedly I finish work at 3pm on Mondays, but that obviously didn’t happen. Although I had to sit through three lights at one intersection waiting to turn left because someone must have one of the emergency vehicle things that turns their lights green but then skips my green arrow, I still got home in fifty-two minutes. At 5pm. And while sitting at a stupid light through three cycles watching the emergency light flash on, then off, then the other direction went, then it would flash on again…. You really would have admired my restraint!

And now I’m home and mostly sane after some of the weird things today… and I’ll even be on time for yoga! (Ok, so I'm posting this after yoga -- I had to leave if I wanted to be on time!)