We've all been there. Offices move, new furniture comes, etc. And, usually we just see the end result by moving into our new work homes.
Last Friday, I finally got my very own cubicle. Now, I'm like all the other librarians in my department. Woo hoo! We've had the planners in several times to map it out, decide on configuration, etc. Then we got the date. So, last Thursday afternoon, I and several others (we rearranged some open work stations as well) packed up our desk stuff in anticipation of the activity the next day. We got to work and waited. And waited. And waited. They didn't start installation until almost 2:00 pm. And, of course, it wasn't as smooth as we had anticipated.
We're in a big, open room, so to get power to the workstations, we have power poles coming down from the ceiling. The planners said they wouldn't need to be moved. We didn't question this. We should have. The power poles had to be moved. Rush order to the physical plant for electricians. We were hoping for Monday, but one actually showed up that afternoon. He couldn't do anything then, but he stopped by to see what was going on so he would know what to do. And, he realized that they were going to put my partition wall in front of the electrical outlet and run power strips under the wall for my power. His question (one I hadn't yet voiced) was "what if you need to unplug it?" What indeed. And, they had wanted to plug one power strip into another. I said no and was backed up by the electrician. Can't do that, unless you want to get in trouble with the Fire Marshall.
So, no power in the cubicle and no power in the workstations. And, no phone either, because no lines where the workstations were moved and of course, my phone and data outlet couldn't be blocked by my partition walls either.
I will say, the electricians, the data guy, and the phone guy had us up and running by Monday afternoon. We weren't expecting to be down two days, but those guys really put us at the top and for that I'm grateful.
In addition, the wood for my desk is a different color - it's lighter than everyone elses. And, the overhead cabinet doesn't match the trim in the cubicle. My manager has decided to let me keep the lighter wood (we all like it better), but the overhead cabinet will have to be swapped out. We were first told a new one would be ordered. Yesterday, we were told this one would be painted. The off color one is still set up because I need the light. So, I'm not sure when they'll come take what I have or what will happen with the overhead.
Somehow, when the installers finally showed up, I wound up being the point person for the set-up, the electrical moves, the phone moves, the data stuff, etc. Since I couldn't do much of anything else, that was fine and I kind of enjoyed telling people what to do. But, I also have a whole new respect for facilities and office managers who coordinate entire build-outs of new office space.
