When it rains… hurricane a blowin!!!

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.

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About me
I'm a 30-something mom of two, crazy cat lady, avid reader, tech dabbler, scrivener, self-proclaimed stitcher extraordinaire, and all-around goofy person. We live in suburban Chicago and frequently wonder why we haven't managed yet to escaped to more moderate climes.
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