h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Elsewhere on h2g2, a conversation happened about moving offices. One researcher had been in the same office for 30 years, whereas I have never spent more than 2 years in one office.

The process of moving from one office to another can be a challenge - one researcher avoided hassle by wheeling the computer and office chair to the new location, whereas other people have to wait for facilities teams to do the move for them.

It was suggested that this might be a good topic for a collaborative Entry, so I have decided to take up the challenge

Have you moved offices, or have you been settled in one place?

If you have moved offices, was there a smooth plan for setting up computers etc, or did problems occur?

Did you move to a better building, or was the place you moved from better (for your definition of 'better')?

Did the office move cause you problems with transport, or was it an improvement?

I worked at one department for 15 years of my worklife, and I think I moved offices 10 times. First move was tough - I had collected too much junk in binders, and was insecure in myself, so a new office felt scary.. Each move, I tossed stuff, and the last ones were easier.
I always moved my stuff myself, loaded a cart with binders and computer, and then rolled my chair.
When I left, I was a consultant for 8 years, which meant my laptop was my office, and I worked in odd meeting rooms, on tables of the wrong height, and on my own sofa. Oh, ok, for a while I did have a long assignment and got a desk of "my own" which was nice. But I learned not to collect paper. Can't carry that shit around, especially on airplane travels to customer sites
My new job since a few months, I have my own room! But I will be careful not to fill up binders again, and there's a new move coming up in the spring.
It's good to move, I think

I worked in one department for 14 years, and then came downstairs and worked in another for 23 years. But that doesn't mean I always stayed in the same place. My desk was moved around the floor many times.

In my first ever office job, working in the sales department for a company selling power tools and fixings, they moved me out of the main office in order to make room for the Christmas tree.

Surprisingly, I didn't stay in that job long after that…

<BB<

Why? Did the christmas tree achieve better sales figures?

I think someone was trying to needle you.

Hmm... I guess I lost the longish post I thought I posted a couple of hours ago.

I sort of refused to move office once.

I once worked in a bank branch (no, not a joke). After being there a few years a really unpleasant person was appointed regional director – he spent his time being unpleasant to all the male employees and flirting with the female employees. Shortly after he started quite a few people, including many who had worked for the bank for years, had left leaving the whole region short-staffed.
The branch where he was based, Bristol, was particularly badly affected and so he started ordering people to spend a week based there instead of at their home branch. I was ordered to spend a week based in Bristol, but refused to go. My wife was heavily pregnant with my son at the time and so I said there was no way I would regularly go to Bristol. I got a tad told off, but I changed job to work for the Uni. The banking sector collapsed the minute I left and he lost his job.

<BB<

Was that between 2007 and 2009?

Probably, judging by the ages of Bluebottle's children as described in his journals.

And to think we were blaming 2legs all this time.

By the way, I wrote a long and convoluted and only half relevant post to this thread, but then I scrapped it.

I have been involved in an office move - two, in fact. The first was from a sort of house, which we occupied entirely, into another house which, again, was just for us, but had been renovated and done up like a proper office with all the sockets and cables and fax and internet connections.

Everything was labelled and sorted, and I don't think anything went wrong. We needed to hire a specialist to move our safe, which was huge and extremely heavy.

In neither case did anything go very wrong, and I can't really remember much about them.

Is an unsafe even heavier?

I changed work locations many times, but aside from some personal copies of technical manuals and tools - not much to shuffle.

How-ever, working on an Air Base, some deep construction digging near my 1948 hangar work-place, a subterranean pool of contaminants was disturbed and began to move. (Lots of common PCB and carcinogenic solvents and cleansers from the 40s through the 80's). Many bore holes and samplings showed it was inching like mercury under our building.

Engineers and administrative people had movers and trucks to relocate them for a time - but we dirty knuckled working stiffs had to use every cart, wagon and dolly we could find. To move all of the electronics test gear and tools we use daily, as well as the loads of devices we were there to repair. About 2 town "blocks" was the drag.

Less than 3 months later, we returned to the old place - same fashion.

The company I work for moved 5½ years ago from a massive, sprawling building they'd occupied for 50+ years into part of a floor in a 6 story tower and a small warehouse. It was bound to be chaotic.

My colleage & I in the finance/HR department spent months boxing and labelling, and I myself was in charge of all the secure archived stuff (payroll and HR info). When the time came to move, my pile of secure archive boxes were loaded onto a pallet and the removal men were instructed to unload them all in one area so they could be easily found and moved into the secure storage once it was finished the following week.

These guys obviously just opened all the pallets then threw boxes down a chain to pile them any old how. Stuff fell out of boxes and when it was found it was put back in the nearest box. Boxes were stacked against the wall, oftentimes with the labelling at the back. It was chaos and it still is. I still haven't managed to find all the records.

I blame whoever decided to get in a team recommended by a friend of a friend rather than pay a firm of professional movers. It's been a hugely false economy.

Deb

I was victimized by an office move once. I had rented a car for a month while mine was being repaired. Rather than pay for it directly and wait for my insurance to reimburse me, I arranged for payment with a purchase order from the insurer. The rental place moved offices at sometime during the following year and sometime after that they found my rental agreement, but not the records of my payment. So, they charged my credit card without notice. I saw the charge amount without any context. The company name on the charge didn't match the rental company. I was quite puzzled and angry, but then the amount finally clicked (something like $653.57). This charge occurred over a year and a half after I rented the car.

It took several phone calls to figure out what happened and get it straightened out.

Thanks for your comments everyone

I've pulled everything together into a draft Entry A87882079 and I hope it's OK for you

If there's anything else you think could be included, say so here and I'll add it in before it goes into Peer Review

I know I said Tea-chest earlier, but I meant Teacrates:

http://www.phs.co.uk/our-services/crate-rental-packaging

?

Ah yes – the cracks in the wall. They were plastered over a couple of months back but they've returned, same as before.

In the decade I've worked in the Uni I spent most of my time in the John Millais building (named after the painter who was born in Southampton). This was building was originally the Southampton College of Art before it became a Uni. After 6 years they moved me out of Floor 1 to Floor 0 (the basement) in order for me to be closer to the people I worked with on Floor 3 – I don't think they'd thought that through. After a year they moved me back where I was for a year. They then moved us all to Floor 5 when they took the lift out of commission, and closed the front entrance, which meant we had a 7 floor climb each day. We were then 'realigned' and the team split up, and I was sent to the Reginal Mitchell building (named after the designer of the Spitfire). This building was originally the Southampton College of Technology.

After getting rid of lots of members of staff they're currently in the phase where they are coming to the realisation that not all the work is able to be done. Instead of recruiting more staff they are going for the 'keep chopping and changing everyone's job role' approach which also means more pointless office moves. In August the team was split up and divided again. Though I stayed in the same office I was moved from the desk next to the door to the desk next to the desk next to the door. Not sure why…

<BB<

I always found the stationary cupboard to be the fly in the ointment of an office move.

Thanks everyone I've added in more detail, including my experience of a new building:

The first office I worked in was a sort of house, which I did like, as it was quite homely. We then moved into an older building that was much more grand, so I got a lot of exercise by going down the long corridors to get to my team's room.

That cost too much to maintain, so we then moved into a brand new building with all mod cons, like 'temperature redistribution systems' and machines that produced a substance that was 'almost, but not quite entirely, unlike tea'. Unfortunately, with actual humans inside it rather than theoretical ones, the building struggled with self-regulation - there were always hot spots and cold spots in the massive open plan space.

I'll add links later, and then I'll put it into Peer Review and see how it goes