My Needleful Blog

Well, it’s not done, but I didn’t expect it to be. K and her mom did completely
shelve all of Bosses #1 and 2, and almost entirely sorted out the other two attorney’s
boxes for unpacking. They knew we had to reset shelves so they didn’t unpack those.

Ran into a minor complication while setting shelves for Boss #3 – power outlet behind
the cabinet that got in the way of where I wanted to put the second to last shelf.
No major, just moved everything up one, but of course I found this out as I was
finishing the second cabinet. Ah well, it was still under an hour at that point.

Resetting and unpacking the fourth attorney took longer than I anticipated because
of the resort, but I was still doing pretty well. Probably about 4 hours total for
both of them.

Then on to supplies and spot cleaning as I went. Made some significant shifts in
locations because of lack of drawers and having opened up a second of the metal
racks. I still want drawers of some kind, though, because there’s so much little
stuff that used to be in drawers and I think is going to get lost otherwise. I’m
going to take a look at Container Store later and see what I can do with elfa or
some other similar modular unit to fit into the under-counter cabinet space.

We also did a final pass-through at the old space. I don’t know if someone did a
pass and brought over the plastic crate that had my gift wrap and cooler packs in
it or if the building decided that was trash, but they weren’t there anymore. If
they show up at the new space, great. If not, no major loss, the gift wrap was the
biggest thing.

We finally left about 6:45. 6 hours yesterday plus 6.5 today. That’ll really help.

Didn’t expect moving to interfere so much with my stitching time this month… My poor hands are quite torn up from all the packing and moving and unpacking, and it isn’t quite over yet!

Especially when knowing better than the other person ends up causing me more work
because they refused to listen.

Turn the clock back about 36 hours. Boss #1 is conferring with the reassembly crew
about the file room shelving. I’ve already over-ridden the floor plan and demanded
two back-to-back rows of three starting at the wall with a 2-panel section and a
3-panel section in other locations. And the guy agreed with me that it made more
sense and was less likely to raise a fire code violation.

Boss #1 doesn’t like the location of the 2-panel, and moves it to a different wall
which just so happens to block the fire klaxon in the file room. Bad thing. Now,
if we never ever ever use that top shelf so the klaxon stays visible, we might get
away with it. (although I’m fully expecting a warning from the fire chief when he
comes to inspect. – and trust me, they do). Boss leaves the other cabinets as is,
though. However, Boss #1 has also prescribed a shelf configuration that didn’t look
right to me as they were just starting – clue #1: way too much open space on the
bottom shelf – and kept telling me that he measured it out, everything was right,
and I was over-reacting. Well, it later proved to leave way too many unused shelves
and supports (clue #2). Now I know we shouldn’t have so many, but what do I know,
right? I only spent how many hours in the file room on a routine basis? So I shut
up and let myself get frustrated at something else.

Well guess what? Today while K and I are unloading boxes, we find absolute proof
that Boss #1 was wrong and I was right – boxes labeled "shelf 5". Boss
#1’s configuration leaves only 6 shelves per cabinet. Plus we lost one cabinet entirely.
So we’re down EIGHTEEN shelves from where we were at the old office. Nope, this
is totally not going to work. That’s three full cabinets at his layout, and there
is no way in hell we can fit 84 shelves worth of files onto only 66 shelves total.

Boss #2 was around for this today, and all I can say is he better be feeling damned
lucky that he’s not #1. If he were, he’d be in deep doo-doo. As it is, Boss #1 is
really up a creek when he finally comes back to the office Monday afternoon. And
I fully expect that Boss #2 warns him about the situation…

So K’s mom, who came down to help us out for the day, went out in search of a hammer
so I could undo all the shelving and reset it correctly. Hammer required because
the construction guy used a rubber mallet to set them in place and there was no
way I could get the center pieces out by manual force alone. At least I got myself
a nice outlet for my anger and aggression.

TWO HOURS of completely wasted time because he couldn’t accept that I knew what
I was talking about. Two hours in which I alone could have easily unpacked another
15 boxes and in which everyone else had to spend sorting instead of unloading so
they didn’t get in my way – and precious little room available for THAT.

I only got 6 cabinets reset – the center ones that hold Bosses #1 and 2’s files.
And the only reason I did those first was because they were the most accessible.
K and her mom stayed after we left and they were going to keep working on those
files.

Oh, and as for the other bosses? As I said, #1 is in NYC. #3 was there when I arrived,
hadn’t been for long because his girlfriend signed in as a visitor about a half
hour before we checked in, and left about an hour and a half later. Boss #2 showed
up about 2:30, left for a haircut shortly after the shelf situation exploded, came
back after K’s mom got me a hammer and left again within an hour. The other secretary
and the bookkeeper? Nothing. So K was there till midnight on Thursday. H and I were
there for 6 hours today, and I bet K and her mom will put in about the same. And
H and I will probably put in about another 6 hours tomorrow.

I am so very tempted to say "screw it", not go to the office tomorrow
and spend the day doing my own housework and errands. But I’m getting overtime and
maybe even doubletime for this, so the money is turning out to be a very persuasive
argument.

Tomorrow I get to move all the boxes away from Boss #3’s cabinets, reset his, and
unpack, and then the same for AER. I’m leaving him for last because he’s changing
his entire scheme from at the old office and I need to be able to focus, and because
we’d already sorted his boxes based on the old layout, so I need to move everything
to reset shelves and resort it all to be reshelved. He may not get done till Monday,
to be honest, and no real skin off my nose if that’s the case.

Okay, so everything is in the new office. At least Ithink so. There were a few very
small pieces when I went for my last load today, and K was supposed to go back.
Maybe H and I will stop by on our way in tomorrow just to be sure.

Spent my entire day unpacking and starting to organize. I can see a probable need
for small drawer space, as I only have one of the type of cabinets I had at the
old place, and a definite need for organizers of some kind for the drawers I do
have. But oh man I have so much storage room… it’s wonderful.

We’ve put all the minute books over my desk, which makes complete sense as I’m really
the only one who goes in them on any regular basis. Unfortunately, they completely
fill all of my overhead cabinets, and I don’t have room for expansion. We’ll have
to see what happens. One of the items on my list of tasks for next week is to put
together a list of all the books I have and have each attorney mark which are active
clients of theirs. I’d like to send the dormant clients to storage, and I suspect
I still have a couple of NMG’s books despite his claims that he’d marked all of
his.

I still have a couple unused legal-size drawers, so I definitely have room for other
stuff, it’s just that books on their spines (or on the open edges) is not a good
way of storing them. So I’m really hoping to avoid that particular plan.

I managed to locate all the boxes for the will vault today and that’s fully unpacked
and back to normal. One fax machine is plugged in and working. (The other will be
once I can clear some counter space). I’m going to shift the location of the postage
meter slightly, I think, to accommodate where we have space for mail bins. And we
got about a half dozen boxes of file room unpacked.

K and I are going to work tomorrow to get the file room finished off. H is going
to come with us, I’ll set her to unfolding boxes first and then we’ll see what’s
next on the list for her. A couple of the bosses will also be in to organize their
own areas and probably catch up on work they missed over the last couple days for
the move.

There is an end in sight. It’s just at the far end of a pretty long tunnel. And
so far there’s no sign of the inevitable forgotten necessity… a miracle!

I haven’t stitched in a full week, maybe a bit more. My hands are really badly abraded
from all the packing and unpacking and handling of paper stuff which has sucked
all moisture out of me. So until this is done and I can get my fingertips (at a
minimum) back in shape, I’m putting all of it on hold. Not like I have a shortage
of books to keep me occupied in the meantime…

Moving Day. And boy was it a day.

First my inbound train was late. I shoulda drove. I almost did. Even almost told
C to stay home in the morning and I’d put M on the bus. But noooooooooo. I decided
to save the money on gas and parking and trust that I’d get out at a decent hour
since the guys claimed they saw no reason to stay late.

Then the network guys want to take the server and workstations down at 10 am. Uh.
No. Not gonna work. After much deliberation, we finally agree on 1:30.

Then the coffee service guy shows up to swap machines – but has no knowledge of
the fact that the new machine is going to a different location than the source of
the old one. Because. He. Didn’t. Read. His. Service. Ticket. So we finally get
that straightened out. He takes down the old machine – leaves us the carafes and
the filter basket, though, not sure if that was intentional. We go to the new office.
He has no copper tubing with him. Specifically ordered copper tubing, confirmed
during three different conversations with our sales person and two different service
department reps. He also doesn’t have PVC or anything else with him, nor does he
have new carafes or filter basket. So he goes down to his truck. And I wait. and
I wait. And after about a half hour, I finally bail. I figure he can come back to
233 for a signature at this rate. As I’m walking out, I see him heading into an
elevator in a different bank. But I’m not stopping, I’m ticked and I’m tired and
I have too much work to do to be sitting around waiting for him. I go back nearly
an hour later and he’s still there. Finally, over 2 hours from his first arrival,
he finishes up. Grr.

Then the computers come down and B1 tells me to go over to 111 with the computer
guys so they know where the freight elevators are at. Okay, no prob, I grab a few
boxes while I’m at it. Freight at 233, easy peasy. Freight at 111, however? Entry
is locked, the elevator is down. Uh, this isn’t good. So security points us to the
garage elevator – we can get into the parking garage from the lobby? score! – and
we go up through passenger. On the return from the second such trip, we are told
that freight is again working. Good. This was about 3:00.

Lots of hauling, lots of packing, lots of aches and pains. But B1 orders pizza for
everyone late in the afternoon knowing that nobody really got a break all day. That
helped.

Couple more runs. When we took #2 after pizza, the doors to freight were locked
again. I went up to lobby and asked them to page Dennis because we’re now after
4:00 and we have the elevator reserved and exclusive for the rest of the night.
Turns out that the computer guys told him that "this is our last run"
while taking the servers, which was interpreted as "CRZ is finished".
Uh. No. Anyway….

5:30 – my last of the day because I really should be on my way to the train by now
but I agreed to stay a little longer. K and I go over with the butcher block cart
full of kitchen supplies and dishes. No sign of Dennis when the elevator opens,
but I’m tired and not thinking entirely straight, and K has been up and down so
many times that she’s sure she knows what she’s doing. Hell, it’s just hit the close
doors and then our floor, right? Well…………

WE GOT STUCK IN THE FRAGGING ELEVATOR FOR FORTY-FIVE MINUTES!!!!!

Elevator doors close. We go to 5. We stop. Call light is on for 5, so I can understand
why we stop. Doors don’t open, though. K hits open, no response. We sit for a bit.
We go up . We stop at 12. Both lights are on for 12, so okay. But doors don’t open.
K hits open button, no response. K hits close button, no response. We wait a bit.
K finally hits the call button, by now we’re getting a bit punchy giggly, it’s been
about 10 minutes so far. After a few minutes of everyone talking over each other,
we finally get the message through that we’re inside and it’s not moving. Suddenly,
it goes down to plaza, but doors still don’t open. Another call. I hear Dennis on
the other side, he knows it’s us. (There’s a camera, he probably looked first).
He’s telling us to push buttons, the lady on the security com is telling us to not
push buttons. We’re getting really giddy, I’m almost to the point where I’m going
to start tearing from laughing so hard. Security lady thinks I’m panicking and starts
a running commentary which makes it impossible to hear Dennis. and I’m laughing
so hard I can’t tell her that I’m okay, I’m not scared, I’m not worried, I’m just
stuck. I call first B1 to warn him that freight is non-functional again and then
C to let him know I’m obviously going to be a lot later than anticipated. He gets
pissed cause "you have no right to be joking about this". Uh? WTF????
I’m borderline hysterical (although I didn’t quite realize it till the adrenaline
started to wear off) and the only reason I’m not curled in a corner is cause I’m
not alone in here (again, something I didn’t realize till later). And I’m somehow
wrong for dealing with it in the only way I can??? Finally after 45 minutes total
time, Dennis gets the door pried open and we escape. Work our way around to passenger
and as we get to our bank, B1 walks up with a handful of paintings. And right behind
us are Dennis and two engineers, all of whom are unbelievably apologetic and practically
fawning over us. I’m still high on adrenaline at this point.

We get our load dumped off, head back to 233. Security tells us that they’re padding
up a regular elevator for us to use until they get freight running again and that
a tech from the elevator company is already on his way. They think they’ll be fixed
by 7:00, which is our estimate for when ABC shows up at the dock with our truckloads.
But if not, they have #18 ready. So K goes off with her to make whatever arrangements
they need, B1 and I return to 233. Tell everyone about freight and the (hopefully)
temporary arrangement. I finally get out at 6:20.

Ended up on the 6:50 train that blows past my stop but is close enough for C to
pick me up, and it gets there 20 minutes earlier than if I’d been on the 55. Except
that it decides to stop and wait for 10 minutes for no apparent reason, so I’m late
yet again. And he’s not happy. Well, okay, I can understand, but it’s not like I
planned it or could control it, and I certainly can’t tell him to come later when
the damned engineers won’t tell us anything, including how late we are when we do
get moving again. WhatEVER.

Tonight was also Family Fun Night for H’s school. So as soon as C drops us off,
we load into our car and head over to Enchanted Castle. I got to meet H’s new boyfriend
(!!!!) and his mother. Seems like a nice kid, mom is definitely nice. And they live
about a block away. Yeah, I can deal with this, I suppose. At least till I start
getting any inkling of anything untoward. So I play cool and let them go off on
their own, but we’re still within reasonable eyesight range at all times. Just in
case.

Get home, get kids in bed, and plop in front of puter. No music, no movie, no stitching.
Just vegging out and not moving out of this seat till bedtime. Man I hope my muscles
don’t all lock up in my sleep. I am gonna be so sore as it is… wish I still had
some Vicodin left over.