The Move had been looming on the horizon for quite some time, but no one, not even the executives, knew when it would happen. It was the brainchild of the ego-maniacal CEO, and neither financial instability nor logic, nor anything else in all creation would be able to separate him from this plan. In his mind, all things were possible, and he did not care how insurmountable the project was, it would be completed. (Put another way, “your sleep is not important to me” – direct quote in a phone conversation to my co-worker while we were at the office at midnight on a Saturday night, day 2 of The Move).
The Move was to consist of relocating three offices into a single building, this meant moving about 50 office personnel, including most of the desks, files, etc. and 100 field construction staff. We were told we would move in June… Or maybe July… Or possibly August… Or the whole thing might fall through, who knows?
In mid June, after weeks of back-and-forth, I was told one morning, “oh by the way Megan, we’re moving on the 25th. Please start coordinating everything.”
“Wha…? You mean the 25th, as in, 10 days from now?”
Yep, that was exactly what they meant. The next ten days were spent in a frenzy of organizing, working up agendas, calling moving companies, holding meetings, delegating and doing and trying to map out every tiny detail, with plans changing hourly and almost no communication from those in charge. (Conversations with the moving company went something like, “Okay, we will definitely need you to move this and leave that.” An hour later: “Never mind, leave this and move that. Oh, and I just got an email asking about this other thing, can you add that into your quote?”). All this while trying to manage the other daily operations.
The day before the three-day move was to occur (each office was moved on it’s own day), I spent half the morning wrapping up hundreds of army man figurines in bubble wrap in the CEO’s office because I had been told that under no circumstances were the movers to TOUCH his office. Instead, I was expected to pack and transport in my own car all of his stuff. “Don’t worry, Megan” he assured me, “the revolvers and hand grenades from World War I are completely disarmed and won’t detonate.” Oh really? That’s a shame, because I’d really like to blow my head off right about now.
Meanwhile, I was also attempting to field questions from my co-workers (“Where are the boxes?” “Downstairs, same place they were when you asked ten minutes ago”), the admins from the other offices (“Are we moving all the desks?” “No – do you remember those fifty emails where we discussed NOT moving all the desks? Yeah”), and the movers (“Everything will be completely ready to go by 7am tomorrow, right?” “Of course!” …not), convincing people to actually pack their own stuff and not wait for me to do it (this was accomplished by many threats of, “If it’s not packed in the morning, I WILL throw it away. Yes, I am a bitch, you’re surprised?”), issuing last-minute instructions (“No, do NOT lock your office if you want it to be moved, I don’t have the key”) and simultaneously helping my boss with travel arrangements because he and his Vice President HAD to be upgraded to First Class on a completely booked hour-and-a-half flight that was leaving in two hours (he got First Class, the VP was stuck in coach. I’m good, but I’m not that good). By 7pm my own desk still wasn’t packed, but everything was nearing completion. Some of my co-workers helped me throw the majority of my stuff into boxes, and I called it a day.
I spent a restless, sleepless night worrying about details. (This had some benefit, because at 3am I remembered that one of the desks had a panic button that needed to be disarmed before it could be moved). I got up at 5am to a car that was completely dead, and, after getting a jump-start I headed to the office an hour later than I had planned, with only thirty minutes before the movers arrived. A quick walk-through of the building showed that people had NOT actually packed completely, and a number of the offices were locked, despite my explicit instructions to leave them unlocked because I DON’T HAVE KEYS. I placed a frantic phone call to a co-worker who lived just down the street from the office who brought keys, all the while frantically throwing stuff in boxes and labeling it. Crisis averted.
The rest of the day went by in a blur of hurry-up-and-wait. I went home at 3pm, slept for a few hours, and then went to the new office from 7pm-11pm to help Brian, the IT Manager. On Saturday, I again went to the office to help Brian with the MASSIVE technological clusterfuck which had ensued from the move. I was mostly moral support, particularly when the CEO became rabid and demanded that everything work! RIGHT! NOW! MINIONS!
On Sunday morning I met the very disgruntled movers at the new building. They had only two workers and one van, whereas on Friday they had had ten workers and two vans. I asked what was wrong, and the mover, who, just two days before, had been friendly and joked with me, grunted angrily and gestured to the inside of the van which had every inch of space crammed full of desks, chairs, file cabinets and boxes.
“We were told half of this stuff wasn’t even moving,” he snapped, “but when we got to the office this morning, everything was labeled to move.”
Flashback to earlier that morning, when I had called our contact at the office that was being moved:
Him: “A lot of these desks aren’t labeled, should I label them?”
Me: “No, absolutely not. If it’s not labeled, it stays. We are not moving everything. Okay?”
Him: “Okay.”
So he labeled EVERYTHING.
I apologised profusely to the movers, and managed to make them relatively happy again. Crisis averted.
By the time I went home on Sunday I was feeling pretty damn proud of myself. Inevitably, though, things fell apart.
To be continued…