After dinner today everyone made a mass effort to start moving things from the old office over to the new space.  Stuck wearing heels, exhausted from the day, and left without insurance, I wasn’t much use.  Plus, the boss kindly remembered my strained back and didn’t want me to exert myself too heavily.  So, I did a lot of hobbling back and forth carrying light items, as well as more of the thinking work, like figuring out where things would go and what we still needed to get for the place.

It’s amazing how much stuff there was in the little space we had been working from, which was only 220 square feet plus a loft area of about 80 sq ft.  Now the entryway to the new place is cluttered with various boxes and knickknacks that will need to be put away this weekend.  We’ve got a lot more space now, which will provide a different dynamic at work, since we’ll all have our own space to work at and there won’t be as much crowding around a table together.  There’s a separate meeting room area too, in case I ever need to get away from distractions and really focus on work.

I’m glad I came at this time, to catch a glimpse of how things used to work in the office and watch how it develops now.  It’ll be an adjustment to have everyone on the same floor so we can see each other.  Space was generally more communal with a huge table and benches that most of us shared, but now we’re going to have smaller tables and more consistent seating.  I kind of liked the old way, being crammed there with everyone living like a family.  Now it’s going to be a lot easier to operate more independently and I probably won’t even need anyone to pass me the snacks or help me get a cup of water so I don’t have to try to navigate around them.

This change is all at once exciting and bittersweet and I look forward to seeing how things develop from here.  This weekend will be spent settling in so we can do business as usual from the new place starting Monday morning.  I’m afraid I’m going to spend a lot of time being confused as to what goes where and how I can help, since I don’t really know how things are organized and I have nothing of my own to arrange and organize.  Perhaps I will bring my Joe Bruin bear to spruce up the desk space, if we end up with designated spots.  I can see us just setting up a bunch of tables in that area and people moving around still.  That’d actually be quite fun and nice – still reminiscent of how things operated before.

Time to put on my working clothes and get ready to get down and dirty all weekend!  It’ll be a fun time to work together with these people on something other than the projects.