Move to Bldg. A & Grandma

Last week's move to Building A did not go quite as smoothly as I would have liked. In fact, I felt like ripping my hair out four of the five days. It started Monday with people contacting me at 6:00 a.m. to tell me there weren't enough crates for the move (I had been pushing for the crates vs. cardboard boxes since we started the move process over two months previously, but the decision was made at the last minute, i.e., the week before). They had delivered 350 crates on Friday, but when you have 70+ people moving, that only comes to five per person and the Big Boss himself took 20. I knew I would need 9 since that's what it took to all of the dept. crap just nine months previously. So, you can see the problem already. Not only did they not deliver enough crates for the entire department, they didn't deliver enough dollies for the 350 crates (four crates per dolly). They couldn't get us any additional crates or dollies, so whomever hadn't gone on Friday to grab crates was stuck using cardboard boxes. I spent the day answering e-mails and running around helping the Tuesday move people (about 20 of us didn't move until Wednesday). Then the computer crates showed up, so I was getting e-mails from half the department (at the exhortation of one particular goofball who wanted to see if I would go over the edge) "Can we use the grey & red crates?" I finally sent out a dept.-wide e-mail saying "If you use the grey and red crates, your stuff will not get moved. Don't do it!" And since the entire department decided they'd love to see Kathleen go absolutely nuts, every time someone would see me, they'd ask "Hey, can we use the grey and red crates?" Silly silly kids.

Monday I also got an e-mail from the Corporate Move people forwarded from a guy who sits in the same area to which most of the dept. moved. He was objecting to someone being moved into a desk he had wanted to save. I replied saying that I had not scheduled anybody for that particular desk, but had for the desk just across the aisle. Turns out that somebody was already sitting in that desk although Corporate Move didn't know anything about it, so they simply moved my person across the aisle since he's a real person vs an imaginary possible new hire (mind you, the group already sitting in the area were saving 11 (that's ELEVEN) desks for possible new hires (guess how many of my dept. are sitting in a completely different area because of those 11 desks – yup, you guessed it – eleven). Anyway, I figure out what's going on and I'm furious that they want to move one of my people for a "just-in-case" new hire, but I agreed, letting them know that I was pissed off. "Fine. You can move Tom to Cube AA, although I think I've been more than accommodating considering I have part of my team downstairs and two people sitting in admin cubes. He is already packed and his stuff labeled with the Cube D information. Someone else can take it up with the move team to get him to the correct cube." I figure "Fine." Is an excellent indication of my mood. They didn't care and wrote back saying that they would move his boxes themselves the next morning. (Story to be continued when I get to what went wrong on Wednesday.)

The majority of the dept. moved on Tuesday which left Building C (for Crappy) relatively quiet that day. I helped one of my co-workers pack as she's just swamped with real actual work and just didn't have time to pack. We got her packed in an hour, but she had more boxes than labels, so I carried 8 of her boxes to my desk because I had extra labels and since we were going to be sharing a cube, they'd end up where they needed to be (under my desk apparently). ;-) By this time I was sweating profusely while answering questions from the people who were now in Building A and were having issues. I was finding the occasional crate and getting it to the person who needed it the most.

I was also getting phone calls from co-workers saying "Holy crap, what did Ernest do to you that he got that cube?" I didn't have time to get to Building A and find out what they were talking about, but did on Wednesday. Oy. I don't remember the rest of Tuesday, so on to Wednesday!

Last Wednesday (I wrote this a while back - it was Sept. 12) was my first day of walking to work after nine months, and while that made me happy, it was essentially the highlight of the day. Everything was at my new desk when I got in before 6:00 a.m., but my computer did not get hooked up and set up until 1:00 p.m. They had ONE guy setting up the nearly 20 people who moved that day because three people called in sick. I did get completely unpacked that day while running around and theoretically fixing problems. I went upstairs where the rest of the dept is and found Cube AA where The Other Group moved Tom and nearly blew a gasket. Cube AA was significantly smaller than a normal cube. Why on earth do people think that a cube that is not acceptable for one of their people (not yet hired, mind you) would be acceptable for one of mine??? Tom has since been moved into a normal sized cube.

On to Ernest's cube. It was the same size as Tom's, so you know I wasn't happy. The original agreement had been to take that cube and combine it with the space next to it to make a slightly larger than normal cube and by slightly, I mean very slightly. I told our move coordinator that had been the agreement and a secretary from The Other Group overheard me and came out of her cube to lay claim to the "extra space." "We need that for this-and-such." At this point, I lost it and said, "No, this was agreed upon months ago. You already have two or three other areas for this-and-such. You've saved 11 seats for nonexistent people, so I have that number of people downstairs not sitting with our department and you single-handedly moved Tom out of his seat. I've given enough and I'm tired of it. You've gotten everything you wanted." Or something like that. It was three weeks ago and I was angry.

I went to my desk and called the person with whom I had been dealing for however many months that this move had taken. She called me back and we agreed to meet in the morning. She told me that The Other Group called her the day before and said, "Our relationship with Kathleen's Group has not gotten off to a good foot." And she responded with "Well, what do you expect with you guys doing all the taking and her doing all the giving." Not that it's changed anything, because they're now saying they can't reconfigure Ernest's cube into the original agreed upon configuration. Ernest, thankfully, is not a PITA, so he's taking it all in stride and dealing with it.

The original plan was that once this completely other group moves out in December that those of us downstairs would move into those cubes, but we're not so sure we want to. I'm pretty sure that I don't want to sit anywhere near The Other Group, but I do miss being close to the entire department. Ah well. We'll figure all that out at a future date.

In other news, Grandma's husband died Sept. 12 and all of Grandma's kids (save one of my aunts who couldn't get off work) came into town which made for some interesting times. My aunts have a tendency to be a little busy-body-ish and I wasn't really appreciating it that weekend. I should have bought tickets to opening weekend of the symphony and gone there that Friday night, but I didn't. Let's just say that there was too much family time that weekend which had me expressing myself in such a way that I'm pretty sure the family will tiptoe around certain subjects from now on. The Terror Children learned the "f" word that weekend. And I was told that I didn't have a sense of humor. Sorry, but who has a sense of humor when past mistakes are rubbed in his/her face by all present and you're made fun of as well. The sense of humor remark later in the day earned the Aunt who said a look that could kill. Some of you have seen my Look to Kill and let me just say that I surpassed myself with that one. And I'm not sure I could ever duplicate it. The same aunt is coming in Monday and I'm not all that certain that I want to see her. The aunt who couldn't come in for the memorial mass is arriving on Sunday, I'm just hoping early enough in the day that I can get over there to see her and then I'm sure I can justify not getting over to Grandma's during the week in order NOT to see the annoying aunt because I leave Friday afternoon with Martha for Maine to visit the Younger Sister.

Grandma, for those of you wondering, is doing well. My Little Brother (LB) talked to her last week and she said that she's looking forward to traveling again because Eugene had been diagnosed with cancer a few months after they got married five years ago, so traveling was difficult. I talked to her the other day and she was getting ready to go out for dinner with some friends. She said that the aunts are coming in and are planning on going through the house and going to tell Grandma to get rid of stuff. I told Grandma that it's her house and if she doesn't want to get rid of something she doesn't have to. And that I'd stand behind her. I'm telling you my aunts are being quite meddlesome. Another one had a realtor in to tell Grandma what she has to do to sell the condo. I again told Grandma that she doesn't have to do anything at all and that she doesn't have to move. I do understand that the aunts are trying to make things easier for them once Grandma dies, but for heaven's sake, don't write her off yet and let her live in her house the way she wants it!!! Besides, I'm not letting Grandma die for many many years.