It is very quiet at the office here today. In the normal cycles of the corporate world it happens sometimes, just like you have days of chaos and confusion. Sometimes the stars align and you have days of quiet and contemplation. Today has been one of them. I woke up and started early this morning. One of the advantages of being a "knowledge worker" is you have flexibility. If you work for the right organization you can exercise that flexibility by starting early or finishing late, by working when the muse is fully upon you, or when you've managed to find that point of silence where you can concentrate.
A short while ago I walked outside intending to bask in the sun a bit. Unfortunately, there was no sun for basking. The morning fog and cloud cover is just now burning off. I stood there near the back door for a while anyway, sunglasses on, basking in the cloudiness. I've mentioned before that my work area, my office area, has no natural light. After a while in such an environment you start to crave it. When Dame Fortune spins the wheel of office relocation again, and I am sure she will, I hope I land near a window. I was just sitting here thinking about my "journey in offices" with this corporation.
My first office was a shared cubicle. I started here as a temporary worker doing data entry while I was in graduate school. I shared the cubicle of an analyst, but the cubicle was so small that we basically had to play Tetris to get in and out of it.
My second office was a single cubicle, shared with two servers. It was an improvement from the first cubicle, but only marginally, since people were continually in and out of it to tinker with the servers, a pair of old Suns.
My third office was a great big cubicle right next to the front door. It was spacious and well appointed, with lots of room. No one wanted the cubicle because of its position next to the door. All day long people went in and out and given the proximity to the door, people just automatically assumed you were the receptionist. I liked it because of its size and because it was right next to the door, so I could slip outside and sit on the picnic bench in front of the building.
My third office was yet another cubicle, in a different building. The building of the first three offices was sold and torn down. This was actually a double-cube that faced a glass wall that opened on a very large central atrium. It also had a pair of racked servers in it. In this case, no one else wanted it because it was wide open. Anyone walking by could look right at you through the glass wall. I rearranged the furniture so I was facing the atrium and then made it a point to vigorously wave at anyone who looked at me, mostly because their startled looks would amuse me. It was always interesting to me who would enthusiastically wave back and who would suddenly look away.
My fourth office came with a promotion and I landed against the opposite wall from the third office. It was a regular sized cubicle that fronted on a glass brick wall, beyond which was a hedge, a yard, a street, and a parking lot. That was probably the most ordinary cubicle I had and it was comfortable and normal.
My fifth office was a move up one floor, into a small cubicle in a shared area. Not a very pleasant work circumstance, given the cubicle was very small and it was a heavily trafficked area. The cubicle was so small that in order to go from the computer desk to the office desk all you had to do was spin around and be careful you didn't bang your knees on anything. The best part of that location wasn't the cube, it was that you could enter and leave the building via a back stairwell that let out behind the company cafeteria. For exercise I would walk up and down the five floors of stairs.
My sixth office was another standard cubicle in a very nice area, with adequate space, natural light, and an AC that was set permanently on cryogenic freeze, regardless of how many times the HVAC folks tinkered with it. I'd often come in and find my analysts covered in blankets, wearing stocking caps and gloves, inside, in the summer.
My seventh office was about ten feet from my sixth office. When I was promoted to management, they decided to move me into a managers cube, which they constructed partly by tearing my old cubicle down. It was spacious and was very close to a traditional office. (This company is not big on offices, preferring cubicles and shared spaced.) I had privacy, space and a great view out a floor to ceiling window that looked out, past another company building, at the Santa Cruz Mountains in the distance.
Alas, all good things come to an end, and I landed in my current office. Office wise, it is not bad. It's small, but I am now a minimalist, so I have ample room. (People often think it is larger than it actually is because I have four pieces of furniture and mostly bare walls, which creates the illusion of space. There are two main drawbacks - first, there is no natural light, which is what prompted me to start down the path of remembering other offices, and second area itself is decorated in strange blues and browns. Not-really-blue. Not-really-brown. But, other than that I have no real complaints here - it is off the beaten path, relatively private, and conducive to working. But, oh, light - give me light!
So, that is seven offices in fourteen years, so I am moved, on average, once every two years. Ah, the wonderful world of facility Tetris!
No comments:
Post a Comment