Clueless Diva

The Tale of Two Offices

Rex is moving! We are going to relocate from Lord Street, Botany to Baxter Road, Mascot. The new building is nearer to the airport and has a fantastic view of the runway if you are sitting on the second or thrid floor facing the right way. I was 'blessed' with a cramped corner on the 3rd floor facing my 2 MDs whose view is houses in Mascot and, maybe if you squint your eyes hard enough, Sydney city.

2 weeks earlier, the whole office was abuzz with excitement and people started packing stuff up in anticipation of the move. I will just attempt to log down very briefly what I have accomplished in these 2 weeks and damn! Am I not proud of myself...hehehe....be careful there Eliss.....do not be prideful.

2 weeks to the move
Back from the New Year's celebration and everyone is still in celebratory mood. David got some cardboard boxes with some packing tape in. We started taking our share of boxes and grilling him and Kanwar with where we are going to sit. Kanwar sends out an advisory on the move plus a comprehensive sitting plan so we can all shut up.

Ai Yee who heads the finance department started on her humorous campaign to get her finance department shifted to a corner away from Irwin's eyes. (Latest update: the campaign is not successful)

Shae called from Canada and started firing her instructions on what to pack and how to pack. Sweet mama, I have a lot to pack.

1 week to the move
I gathered the IT boys and told them I would need special help packing up management's IT stuff. I am not going to touch anything and risk killing all the hard drives. Better leave them to the experts.

I started coming in on weekends to pack the archive materials. Took me 2 weekends, one sore back and 2 dirty hands to complete packing all the stuff in 3 huge black cabinets.

Started on Shae's office. As per her instructions, I went to Bunnings and bought about 30 plastic containers to pack her stuff. I used about 18 120litres container and basically emptied her office of everything. That took me 2 work day mornings before work and 2 after hours work day.

2 days into the move
I started on Jac's stuff. Luckily she just shifted to her new sitting place and all her stuff is still relatively packed. I took about 2 hours to do her desk cos of all the unkown stuff that belongs to the last girl who sat there and left the company.

People started asking me about lanyards. Where can I get lanyards, Eliss? How am I suppose to know? Do I look like a lanyard dispenser? Fine, I will requisite for all.

Do you still want these? (and showed me a bucketful of dirty yellowing rubber Rex planes stress balls)

Do you still want these? (and shove about 10 unused and dusty arch files to me and hope miraculously I have use for them)

Do you still want these? (and left 2 boxes of unused filing cabinet files without even mentioning they have left them there for me and suddenly the next day took them saying 'We realise we have use for them in the new building! Thanks for holding on to them for us!')

I feel like a well-dressed garang guni in Rex. Whatever people started to pack and realise the they have no use for anything, who do they pass to? Me!

There is also a special mention about some colleagues who wander around the office and teasing us Asians who have not started packing cos WE ARE BUSY WORKING AND WE WILL PACK BEFORE/AFTER WORK asking,'When are you guys starting to pack? Are you not going to pack?'

What is it with them? It is fine they are using office hours to pack and waste more time joking and laughing about things they are throwing away/leaving for me. It is fine that they are walking about discussing loudly where they are sitting and wondering where they can go for lunch and not doing an ounce of decent work worth mentioning; but it gets on my nerve when I realise that they have finished packing on Thursday and gave themselves half day on Friday after all they computer stuff are packed up. Since they cannot work, they went for lunch and never came back! The audacity! Well, I am not going to say/mention anything to my boss, but I just felt unfair.

I have to pack, on top of my desk and my files, the archive cupboards, Shae's office, Jim's office, unkown bags in Irwin's office, Jac's desk, board room cabinet, corporate gifts cabinet and bascially everything in my office which is shared with finance. I hate to think the amount of unpacking to do when we are at the new building and my assistance to unpack other people's stuff is required.

The night before, I packed until 10pm and was so exhausted. Yesterday, I FINALLY finished packing all the stuff under my jurisdiction and labelled them and I felt such a huge relief. I felt so released and keep telling myself 'Well Done!' cos there is no one in my office who will say that to me. Luckily Chun is there for me and helped me pack all my IT stuff, symbolising the end of packing, (and there I am, dreading the unpacking already) cos I sat there staring helplessing at my PC. Thanks Chun!