01.29.01 - 17:20:31

Day 1: Big New Office

I now have a big new office. Really, it's a very large office. I could fit a couch in here. I should've brought the futon here, rather than storing it in my parent's garage. I though it would find some use in the sewing room. My mother assured me that she could use it. Why, I dunno, particularly since she couldn't use it, and it is now usually hanging in the rafters of the garage.

Anyway, there are some lessons to be learned from the new office, beyond the usual, expected ones. E.g.:

1. A change of desks can make a previously comfortable chair uncomfortable. My chair, which was perfectly suited to my desk arrangement in the smaller office before the big mahoghany desk, is not well-suited to this desk. This desk is too big for me, too high and thus I must lift the chair to a place where, in order to actually balance appropriately and have my feet sorta on the floor, I hafta lean forward, which is not particularly comfortable. If I can scrounge up something on which to rest my toesies at higher than floor level, I'll be good.

Also, I think I'll ask for a new chair.

2. When you buy a new desk, and you're moving your office, make sure they have all the damn parts before you actually move your workspace. My desk is supposed to be L shaped. Like this:

DESKDESKDESKDESK
DDESKDESKDESDESK <----work area here
EEDESKDESKDEDESK
SSE ME
KKS <---- computer on this side
DDK

However, the return (the shorter bit of the L) was damaged at some point. Ergo, I only have the other part. Ergo, all my stuff is resting there, AND there's no place for my phone. And there's not a fridge on this floor, nor a water cooler, nor even a coffee machine. Ergo, I am really SOL when it comes to the normal conveniences in life.

2. Remember the small things. Like trash cans. I almost didn't snag my trash can from the other office in time. I should have a new trash can, to match the studied professionalism of the new office. Something in a muted hue of dark green or subtle tans that does not resemble a trash can so much as a wastebasket. Do we see the difference?

3. Get rid of the stuffed animals. I have a stuffed dragon, a stuffed bug, and a stuffed vulture. They lived on my bookshelves in the other office, and in the case of the stuffed bug, on top of my monitor. I feel really silly with them, now, but I don't want to lose my dragon.

4. Where the hell are my bookshelves? I need them. I have damn books all over the floor.

5. What about a printer? Christ. I hafta print to printers three floors below me. I suppose I can/should be able to make my secretary go get the damned stuff, but I'm too nice. And anyway, shouldn't that be ready, by now? There are four printers on the eleventh floor, in addition to a copier networked and useable as a printer. So.

uhm.

hello?

6. Stop staring out the window. I wish I could draw. I'd make a map of the sky as I see it from here, the river valley winding away. I can see pretty much everything from here.

7. More plants. And make them architectural creatures, with nice, pretty lines. They'll get plenty of light up here.

8. So, here's the deal. Insist that everything be in place before you move, or they may move you and forget about you. Buy better decorations, so your office won't seem so bare. Make your parents give you their old Navajo rug and hang it on the wall, so you seem cultured. Get a rollier chair. But not too rolly, or you'll roll over your skirt like I just did.

Damnit. I want my car back, too.

And I want someone to listen to my new voice mail message and tell me what they think. But there might be weirdos out there, weirder than me, and I don't think it would be the best idea. And I'll always be like this, but I might actually never have an office this pretty again, that's how pretty it is.

So I'm gonna go enjoy it for a while.