For some reason, ever since we moved into this building (that's 18 years ago), my organization loves to play "musical chairs" and move people around. This wouldn't be so bad if they moved people around when we weren't busy, like October when no one's funding has come in yet, so all we can do are no-cost modifications and advanced work until we do get funding. But except for one time in fall 2013, we always seem to move in third quarter, when we're busier than a ship's cat with a hold full of rats.

After six nerve-racking months in a big, fluorescent hell of a room in the Williams Building across the street (which is now an exercise room) and two-and-a-half wonderful years in a tiny but all-my-own hall office (no windows) in the Stanford Building, I was finally moved back to my original building, Colgate, last June, the entire escapade which is told here.

Well, in the interim from then to now, a lot of people have changed what branches they are in, so that the branch chief might be in one corner of the third floor, some of the workers on the long hall on the opposite side of the building from the chief, others squirreled in hall offices, etc. The "we're going to have the entire building" idea apparently is still out in Dreamland somewhere (and in the meanwhile there are wide open spaces going a-begging on the first and second floors while people are crammed into cubicles on the third floor), but Management decided that it would sure be nice if people in branches were next to other people in their branches and their branch chief, so for the past three days (and a few days last week when I was teleworking), people's file folders and personal items have been packed up in blue plastic bins and moved to another office (even if it's only three doors down from where they were originally).

Interestingly enough, this time I didn't have to move, so I've been sitting around in the middle of something that looked like an old "Toonerville Trolley" comic strip, with file cabinets jacked up on dollies whizzing by me, and people pushing carts, or plastic bins on wheels back and forth. An area near me (between me and the printer) had been crammed full of old file cabinets just being stored until it was a maze; most were repurposed for offices or remaindered to the warehouse. You can damn near have a dance in that space now. Since my team lead and I are the only one in our branch in Atlanta (the rest of the gang is in Spokane—um, yes, that Spokane—or Cincinnati or possibly Morgantown; I forget), they moved her opposite me and I got to stay put this time. Wild.

When I first moved into this cubicle I was supposed to have the filing cabinet—standard four-drawer black lateral filing cabinet—right in front of my cubicle for my files. Well, it was full of someone-who-shall-remain-nameless's contract files (all one contract, by the way). And so was the filing cabinet to the right of my cubicle. I got a tad huffy and insisted I had to have somewhere to put my files. So [nameless] very reluctantly moved the files in the filing cabinet to the right and I've had that one since last year. This year the moving team was trying to really get everything straightened out during this move—hence the repositioning/excessing of the stray filing cabinets, which had been sitting there for at least three years—and I was told I would have that filing cabinet in front of my cubicle. Well, guess what, this morning, one file drawer was still full. Since the person taking possession of the cubicle next to me is going to need my current file cabinet, and since no one appears to be designated—yet—for the two cubicles to the left of me, I got totally Fed Up, moved the drawer full of files to an empty drawer in one of those other filing cabinets, and then moved all my files to my correct filing cabinet. To add finishing touches I labeled all the drawers and put my wooden name plate—the one I was given when I started here in April 1988—on top of it.

So here I am one year later, finally finished moving. :-)

Oh, and June 18 was my 32nd anniversary of working for the Federal government. I'm not crazy yet!

[twitch]

Labels: work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:53:00 AM

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