Tag Archive for: Office Move

Adjustments

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The new office is finally beginning to feel like some place I’m supposed to be every day – not just a port in the storm.

Readers that have been keeping up with my blog entries know that my new day job office was completed about a month later than promised. As a result my co-workers and I were forced to work from our homes and cars for about thirty days. It was fun for about two.

But that trauma is almost a memory (not really but I’m working on it). We moved in to our new digs on July 1. Movers brought our old furniture and files the next day and we’ve been unpacking boxes ever since, trying to become a functional office once more.

The Xerox machine was a week late. We’ve discovered we can do very little without a copier. Another week and we would have had to hire a scribe.

We’ve got a new telephone system and crib notes on how to operate it. I still don’t know how to forward calls to another extension. I’m doing a lot of shouting, “XXX, pick up on line one!”

Our new furniture arrived last week. Now we have a mix of post WWII grey steel and 2009 extra special wood veneer particle board. Okay, the new stuff is better than that, but I bet the WWII filing cabinets still outlast our new ones.

The office is approximately 1700 square feet with tiny private offices along two sides and one large communal area that we’ve sectioned off with a wall of filing cabinets and bookcases. It’s actually very nice. And the construction is mostly new – only the concrete slab and steel frame was left from the old building.

Tile floor is throughout, except for the small private offices. The builder ran out of time – actually I might have threatened to shorten his life span if he didn’t hurry up – and he had to use carpet in the individual offices. After walking on the tile for a few weeks, I’m glad it’s not all tile – my joints are protesting.

The building we leased for fifteen plus years before our move was in terrible shape. No upgrading or maintenance had been done for most of that time and we had to get out. We were demanding improvements and the landlord didn’t see the need. The old space was a little bit larger and had a store room we miss, but we surely won’t miss the leaky roof, intermittent heating, or rampant rodent infestation. Seriously, last winter we were almost overrun by mice.

Anyway, that’s all in the past. The parking lot here isn’t finished yet, but in another couple of weeks that will be done. I have a glass door in my new office (instead of a window) and I can watch the workmen pouring a new sidewalk within inches of my door. Will be a great place for a pot of flowers or my rock. Yes, I have a rock. A big rock. It was thrown by a blast from a mining company through the roof of a residence. I keep it to remind me, and the mining company, why the mining regulations are so important. At 150 pounds it’s a little big to move around, but it really makes my point at hearings.

I’m glad to be in the new building, thankful the move was paid for before the state’s economy went south. In Oklahoma we’re only now beginning to feel the pinch that other states have been dealing with for awhile. Our agency budget has been slashed for the next twelve months. I think we’ll have to buy our own ink pens and paper this coming year, but we also won’t be fighting off invading hoards of mice – seems like a fair trade to me.

Just have to figure out how we’ll use our new dishwasher-sized printer. We had money for the printer, but not the $700 stand to hold it. I think the vendor really intended them to be sold as a set. But if you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money. State governments – or at least our state government – can’t run up deficits.

Back to the printer, it’s sitting on the floor. We don’t have a spare piece of furniture that is big enough or sturdy enough to hold it. If we plugged it in now, the printed documents would be shooting out across the tile floor and landing under the new conference table. I’ll have to figure something out.

Hey, if the public complains about state workers laying down on the job, you’ll know at least one reason – no printer stands.

Evelyn David

Coming In for a Landing!

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July 1, 2009, was the day of the big office move. I’ve mentioned before that my day job is with the Oklahoma Department of Mines. I’ve been there 25 years this month. About 20 of those years were spent in a rural field office. The building was nice when we moved in and after the landlord changed, became steadily less nice over the years. A total lack of maintenance will do that to a structure. Have you seen that television special on one of the science channels about would happen if all humans were gone tomorrow? It uses special photographic effects to show how long it would take for the plants and animals to remove all traces of human occupation. Doesn’t really take long. I imagine if the landlord doesn’t get a new renter in the next few months, that building will disappear as the plants and animals take it over.

The new office space was a long time coming. There is a standard 3-4 months of red-tape involved in any relocation of a state office. That’s if everything goes smoothly and the new building is vacant, meets state building codes, and the price doesn’t exceed price per square footage caps. The building we just moved into had to be remodeled before we could move in. The building was gutted, exterior walls removed, exposing the steel bones. The roof was left on, but before the remodel was over, it was replaced. All the plumbing was replaced. And while all that was going on – it rained. It rained for a couple of months straight. My carefully planned move schedule was doomed.

We moved out of our old building on the last working day of May. That’s right, May. For the entire month of June, my office has been my car and home. My employees have been working from home and another field office 60 miles away. It was fun for just about two days. Then it was just a hassle. Each day I drove into the town where the new office was, picked up the office mail from the Post Office (we had it forwarded to new address, then held as it became clear we would not have a June 1 move-in date despite the contractor’s assurances). After collecting the mail, I would go to the new building and check on the remodel progress. Most days there was very little.

Before leaving the old office we had “surplussed” a lot of our elderly furniture and ordered some new stuff- some matching stuff. Note: a field office usually gets castoff furniture from the main office and the main office gets new furniture. Our field office was no exception. I was using some furniture given to the state from the federal government when they closed an office in the early 1980s. The furniture itself was from the post-WWII era. My desk was big – you could land a plane on it. It was all metal – the heavy stuff – with the soft gummy top that is usually covered with a sheet of glass. My desk didn’t come with the glass so you had to be careful with what you set on the surface. A coffee cup ring was permanent if you didn’t use a coaster. Anything heavier, you had a permanent indention.

My boss encouraged me to pick out a new desk – of course it was going to be smaller (they stopped making the big ones) but the new office was going to be smaller too. So I agreed. Reluctantly. My old desk is gone. My new desk is still on order. I’m using a computer table as a desk now. Talk about small! By the time I get my new desk – another week maybe – I’ll probably be thrilled with the size.

On July 2, we hope not only be in the new office with all our boxes and furniture, but to have internet service. When that happens, maybe the new place will feel like home – so to speak.

There are still about 100 boxes to unpack.

Rhonda
aka The Southern Half of Evelyn David

Is it Thursday? Already?

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Time for me to blog again.

And again, my thoughts are scattered. Just got home from Oklahoma City. I was there for the day to meet with my federal counterparts. The topic was hydrology structures on coal mining sites and the need to correct a conflict in the text of our state regulations. Sometimes figuring out the mystery of environmental regulations that were drafted and passed 30 years ago is impossible, even for a mystery writer.

My new office (remember the move I mentioned a few weeks ago?) is still not finished. All our desks, files, computers, etc. are in storage. My staff and I are working from our homes, vehicles, and another field office located about 50 miles away. Although working at home sounds like fun – for me it’s not. I already have an unorganized mess in my living room involving the next Evelyn David book and the promotion materials for the one published last month. Adding in mining reports, mining mail, and copies of regulations and forms, has pushed me right over the edge. My living room is officially a national disaster area.

Tomorrow morning I will drive 15 miles to the new office space, stand outside the half-finished building, tap my foot and glare at the contractor. Then I’ll head to the post office, pick up the agency mail, date stamp it and log it into a notebook while sitting in the parking lot, then drive home. After some lunch (or a late breakfast), I’ll return phone calls (all our office calls are being forwarded to our Oklahoma City office) and deal with e-mailed mining inspection reports that I have to approve.

Since it might be two more weeks (sigh) before we can move into the new space, I’ve set up a weekly Tuesday meeting with my staff at the Pizza Hut. The meeting conditions are primitive (no buffet except on Fridays – the buffet being another causality of the poor economy) but we’re a hardy bunch. We’ll manage.

It was raining off and on all day. My two hour drive home was grey and long. Since my work routine has been totally destroyed, I’m having trouble keeping track of what day it is. I think the painting is supposed to start tomorrow on the new office. And since tomorrow is my blog day, it must be Thursday, which is also trash day – meaning I need to go outside tonight – in the rain – and drag the trash bin to the curb.

On a positive note, both Evelyn David books are selling well. So well they keep going out of stock at Amazon and Ingrams. This means when I promote the book, 50% of the time the buyer has to wait, which makes both halves of Evelyn David very nervous. Our publisher told us today that we had two choices: sell less books or mentally learn to deal with the “out of stock” issue. I may have to take up some kind of meditation or maybe medication! (Note: Barnes & Noble still copies of both Murder Off the Books and Murder Takes the Cake available to ship now.)

I got my latest Amazon order in the mail today. No, I’m not the one buying up all the copies of Murder Takes the Cake! In a mad splurge, I ordered season one of True Blood on dvd and a book recommended by the DorothyL listserve – The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. The book looks good! It’s a hardback, yet didn’t come with a dust jacket. Is that a new practice? Or did Amazon just forget to send it to me?

On an unrelated note – buyers beware. I purchased a blackberry curve from T-Mobile. After three months I’m still waiting for my $100 rebate. Several weeks ago, they wrote and asked for another number off the cell phone box. I think this is the point where most people give up, having tossed the box after filling out the rebate form. Not me. I kept everything. It was still in a pile near my desk. I put the additional information in the next day’s mail to T-Mobile. I also kept copies of all the correspondence. I’m going to get that promised rebate! The rest of my life may be out of control – but if necessary I will make getting that rebate my mission in life! Hear that T-Mobile? You’ve been warned!

Next week I’ll blog about something important. Maybe North Korea and those two American journalists that are being held hostage there. Or maybe the economy. Did I mention the state agency I work for just got a 7% budget cut for next year? It seems clear that in Oklahoma the economy is going to get worse, before it gets better.

Nothing seems to come easy anymore. Maybe it never did and I just didn’t notice.

I’m sure tomorrow will be a better day.

Right! At least it will be a different day.

Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com