Displacement

Our business unit moved to this building almost a year ago. Since then, my team and I have had our little spot – a section of an open-plan office that belonged to us. We’ve been shunted up and down a little, but we’ve always been more-or-less in the same spot.

For the last week or so, the rest of my team have been out on respective sites. I’ve remained alone in the office because all my work at the moment is done online, so I don’t need to be physically close to systems or users.

On Friday afternoon, the manager of another department came up to me and informed me that she had arranged with my new manager that her department were taking over our section of the office, and we had to move to another section as of Monday morning.

Perhaps it’s because of my state of mind at the moment due to my current personal situation, but I’ve taken particular exception to this.

In this new section there aren’t enough vacant desks for all of us. Sure, I’m the only one here right now, but what happens in a month or two when everyone else comes back? Where will they sit? Or are they assuming that enough of us will resign by then so it won’t be a problem?

And thanks a million to our new manager… so far I haven’t been impressed with her. I’ve had two exchanges with her since she took over: first she pussyfooted around approving my leave for next month, and now she sold us out without even informing us herself! As if it wasn’t disturbing enough to hear last week that our former boss is being shipped home to the UK, now we’ve lost our space as well?

This spot sucks – no nice chickies to look at, no window with a spectacular view, the desks here are smaller, there aren’t enough network points, all the chairs here are broken – are they trying to tell us something?

Okay, so it’s closer to the coffee machine, but still not close enough for me to see when a fresh pot is being made. It just means I get less exercise taking my hourly stroll to the pause area.