My company has been gradually remodeling our office building, and the remodel has finally hit my group. The plan is to move us to a temporary space, on the other side of the building, for a couple of months, then move us back when our space is done.
Today was our final day in the old space. We all had to pack up our stuff and label our computer equipment and chairs. And hopefully it’ll all be on the other side of the building when we’re next in the office, on Tuesday. I’ve been with the company for more than ten years, working in the same cubicle, so, theoretically, I should probably have accumulated a lot of crap. In reality, I managed to fit nearly all of my stuff into one plastic crate. The stuff that didn’t fit was: (1) my Batman statue, and (2) my modest collection of programming books.
I’ve been mentally comparing this to the last big office move I had to make, at NMS, in November 2007. That one was a doozy! (Probably best not to get too deep into reminiscing about that. I could really find myself in a spiral if I go down that road…) Anyway, I had a ton of stuff to move back then. Now, it’s mostly just a bit of hardware, and cables, and some stuff I need to keep myself from falling apart (tissues, cough drops, aspirin, etc.).
I only have about a half-dozen printed computer books now, in the office. And I don’t really use them. They’re mostly on old tech that I needed to learn to do some maintenance programming, like SharePoint 2013, and VSTO, and other random stuff. I thought about throwing them all out. For now, they’re in a box in the back of my car. Maybe I’ll get up the nerve to move them from the car to the dumpster over the weekend.
I’m pretty sure our temp space is going to look like our current space, with similar size cubicles. I guess I’ll find out next week. When they move us back, into the remodeled space, I’m a little worried that we’re going to have smaller cubicles, with lower walls. That seems to be the way they’re going with the other remodeled spaces I’ve seen. Or maybe they’ll take into account that we’re programmers, and we need a bit of peace and quiet to get out work done, and give us higher-walled cubicles. (Probably not, but I can hope…)
I’ve still got a chip on my shoulder about the whole “return to office” thing. There’s a reasonable amount of evidence that office mandates don’t help companies make more money, and they certainly don’t make employees happier or more productive. Oh well. At least I still get to work from home on Mondays and Fridays!