On Friday at work we all shuffled up to our new offices, on the slightly dizzying 28th floor. The view is fabulous, of course. Anything would be fabulous after working on the 2nd floor, where the view consists of a wall on another building. No, from the 28th, you can see the other office towers around the city, the MCG, the river, theBolte and Westgate bridges, any approaching aeroplanes… uhhh… hmm.
Of course, the move didn’t go quite to plan. Upon arriving in the morning, naturally, the key didn’t work. I had to wait for someone else to let me in. And none of the stuff that had been so elaborately packed in the previous days (in accordance with the "moving 26 floors within the building" memo) had arrived. No, the moving guys were nowhere to be seen. At least the phones were all working.
Apparently, they had forgotten to book the lift. Yes, evidently in this building if you want to use the goods lift, you have to book it. And they hadn’t. Or if they had, it was for 9:30. So moving was to commence at 9:30. Not exactly the 8am sharp time they had indicated in the memo. And bugger, I had no newspaper to read – I’d left it behind at home.
Around 9:30 they showed up and started moving gear. They needed some help sorting out which desk was which. I travel light, so it was just one box of stuff and my computer that I was waiting for. The movers did trips up and down in the lift. The box arrived quickly, followed by everyone else’s boxes and computers, until the only thing still missing was my computer.
Then the movers disappeared. For about half an hour, no sign of them. Were they kicking my computer around the second floor? Had they taken it home to play with? Were they lost somewhere in the bowels of the building? Eventually I went looking. I found my computer, with someone else’s boxes, sitting on a trolley next to the lift. Great. Movers? Nowhere to be seen.
One of my colleagues suggested wheeling the trolley in and unloading my computer, and we were just about to do that when they showed up again, stinking of cigarette smoke to a man. That explains it. "Now, we’ve wheeled this stuff all the way up through the building, and to a point just around the corner from where it needs to be… hey, let’s have a smoko!"
But no matter. Within minutes everything was up and running and hunky-dory again.
Of course, there’s still the keys to deal with. And our new neighbours, one of whom has the habit of using his speaker phone while leaving his office door open. He must think he’s a hotshot corporate mover and shaker, just because he has a corner office.
And there’s the express lift, too. That feeling of my stomach jumping up my throat is one as the lift plummets to ground level is one that might take a bit of getting used to. No matter. The view is worth it.
