I just started a new job. This is for the same company, just on a new project (my fifth SAP implementation…), and meant another office move. Up to now, every change of project has meant a change of continent (Belgium > Singapore > U.S.A > Belgium > U.S.A) so I was relieved this time to only move to a new building on the same ‘campus’ (as they like to call it, to make you feel like you’re back in college). But what a difference. This new location is more of a change than any of the previous moves.
I was previously in one of the older buildings on the complex, and had my own office on the the top floor (I used to refer to it as the ‘penthouse’, although it was really just a rabbit-warren piled high with boxes of files for a pending lawsuit). It wasn’t as nice as the office I had in Singapore, on the 27th floor of IBM Tower, with a view across the sea all the way to Indonesia, but at least it was my own office.  Now, I’m on the ground floor of a two-storey building that was ‘renovated’ a couple of years back. The renovation seems to have consisted of ripping out all of the interior walls, and putting cubicles in their place. And they’re not even ‘real’ (single-person) cubicles, either. Most cubicles (including mine) house four people, and the walls only go to about four foot off the floor (which at least makes them good for prairie-dogging).
My three cubicle chums are all of Indian (Asian not native American) extraction, so now I know what it’s like to work in a Bangalore call center (especially as the phones come with headsets that everyone wears). In my last job I was thinking of learning Spanish, to help with my occasional trips down to Latin America. Now I’m thinking that maybe Hindi would be a better choice. Not that I think I’ll be having much in the way of casual conversations with my new cubicle-mates – not one of them said a single word to me all day. Maybe my permafrown, ingrained through 14 years of fighting to make people appreciate the need for quality documentation, put them off.
Despite the floor being entirely open plan, this office is actually quieter than my old floor with individual offices – everyone talks in really hushed tones, and if you need to shout down the phone at someone (or ‘chew them out’ as the Americans unpleasantly have it) you’re encouraged to use one of the designated ‘telephone rooms’ (with doors!). In fact the only time there was any noise at all was mid-afternoon, when I heard a small bell tinkling. I thought that in keeping with the quiet environment it was a sedate fire alarm, so I stood up to see if everyone else was heading to the fire exits. Instead, I discovered it was a group stretching session, where everyone in the office has to stand up and stretch their arms and necks to relieve the stess and strain of the workday. Apparently we get to do this every afternoon, so now I also know what it’s like to work in a Japanese cubicle farm.
Other than the cubicles, the office refurbishment was actually pretty well done. In the center of the whole 1000m2 floor are two back-to-back kitchens (I’m not sure why they are next to each other as opposed to on opposite ends of the floor) each of which contains a huge brushed-steel fridge/freezer (both empty), an ice maker, vending machines, two microwaves (which means that there are as many microwaves as urinals on the floor – very odd!), and two coffee machines. The coffee machines are these industrial-sized things that you put individual pods in. No-one told me, so I ended up mistakenly reusing the pod left in the machine by the last user, resulting in the weakest coffee I have ever spat down the nearest sink (much to the disgust of my new officemates – maybe that’s why they’re not speaking to me…).
I’d like to say I’m all settled in already, but sadly not. I moved my boxes over on Friday (myself – although that’s very much frowned upon) but haven’t been able to unpack them as the previous occupant of my little piece of cubicle hell locked the desk and matching cupboard on his way out, and took the keys to with him. Lord knows what I’ll find in them when Building Services come round and drill the old locks out – probably a severed head in a pickle jar or something. In the meantime, I’ve got half a dozen boxes piled up on my desk. I think we’re supposed to have a ‘clean desk’ policy in this building, which means that everything has to be locked away at night (the badge-locks on the doors apparently being inadequate protection against corporate spies – like they’d learn anything useful from my unique ‘filing system’…). What am I supposed to do? Carry the boxes all out to my car and lock them in the trunk every night? Not that we’re allowed to carry our own boxes, in case we injure ourselves and then sue the company. Or worse still, call in sick…
And the work? Not sure, yet. I still haven’t got a job title or job description yet (I’m grandly titling myself “Consultant Without Portfolio”) so I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing. Luckily, they’re giving me a couple of day’s grace for background reading and getting myself up to speed – ‘onboarding’ as they term it – so hopefully by the time they’ve decided what they want me to do I’ll know enough to bluff my way through. Either that or I’ll be dragging my unpacked boxes out to my car one last time, with a cheery alavidha to my new cubicle-buddies on the way out…
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