Dusted Off

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my job this week, and the looming likely lack of it.*  Should know more sometime next week.  But it's had me a little preoccupied, without much energy left to write.  So I'm dusting off this old one I posted last June.  The post may be old, but everything in it is still exactly the same . . .

* Update 6/25:  Not "likely" anymore.  Definite, as of yesterday.  I'll be on the beach as of 7/1 . . .

Our office building looks like a garage sale these days. We've downsized so much, and so many offices have been cleaned out and now just sit dark and empty, dusty and lifeless. Problem is, not everything that used to be in them gets taken away. A lot of the former inhabitants' possessions and supplies just got dumped in the hallway, and there all this stuff still sits as a sad reminder.

Someone used to use that keyboard. Someone used to get their morning coffee in that mug. Someone worked for a long time filling up all those files. Someone obviously didn't want to take their 10- or 15- or 20-year anniversary plaque with them when they left. All these someones, actually about 5000 of them, are no longer part of the life of our company. They've been . . . exhaled.

Some survivors see all this as a free-for-all grab-bag, not unlike the garbage pickers who come out at night to scour the piles at the curb in front of houses who had garage sales over the weekend. They pick through the piles pulling out staplers, three-hole punches, unused writing pads. Can't say I blame them. Everyone gets the modern-day equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition if you try to order common office supplies these days. I recently went to our group Admin to ask for staples. Ordinary SwingLine staples. Unlike the good old days when she would have handed me a box without raising an eyebrow, this time she opened the box and asked "How many do you need?" I kid you not.

I find the hallway flotsam and jetsam depressing, and the scavenging even worse. But occasionally you see something amusing. Like the person who is apparently overjoyed to find that used, plastic water bottle with some bank logo on it. Well, maybe that's sad after all.

But something I saw today really made me think. There were about 15 chairs lined up in a hallway. They've been there for months. I walk past this chair landfill a couple of times a day on my way to get coffee. And today I noticed one of these chairs, an ordinary office chair, had a seat belt on it. Huh? I don't think it was part of the regular chair, but rather that the former occupant had a sense of humor and attached it as a means to convey "Hold on! We're going really fast!" Or maybe the passenger felt his or her job was a roller coaster?

In any event, I think we lost someone creative. Someone who probably did more than just write requirements or sling code or whip up project schedules. I think we lost someone who did the job with a smile. Someone happy working here, or who at least made the best out of a tough situation. I've seen far too many folks like that go. Very talented, intelligent, experienced people, all deemed dispensable by the almighty bottom line.

So tomorrow I may become a scavenger myself. I'd like to go back for that chair and keep it around. Dump my own out in the hall and keep the crazy seat-belted chair. Strap myself in each morning as I start the day as a reminder of and tribute to the kinds of folk that used to work here. I hope they can all come back someday. But in the meantime, they're not forgotten. Buckle up!

Comments

[Bekah]

Did you go get that chair?

[Shamrock]

Nah. I never did. And I still regret it. But I think I'm going to put a seat belt on MY chair when I vacate it. And rocket boosters. Yeah. Rocket boosters.

[Bruce Small]

Five years ago today I turned in my cell phone and keys, and said goodbye to my friends in the big company. Scared, uncertain, afraid of the unknown, that was me.

A few weeks later I had formed my own company, and the business took off. Looking back, I can't believe I tried to stick it out that last year; I had no idea life could be so good on the outside.