Florida Moving Day

Office moving day has arrived and in glorious sunny Florida it’s raining. Does it always rain when you move? I’m in the new office early, before everyone else. The new coffee machine has already served up its virgin brew and I’m sitting with my laptop on my knees – no desk yet – in a completely deserted office.

Moving to a new office is always a mixture of excitement and trepidation. The recently acquired Procurant team in Florida is in the final days before such an office move. No one liked the old office. It was dark and gloomy and its long thin shape didn’t help with collaboration.

I was the biggest cheerleader for a move and after many weeks of looking at potential new offices and talking with brokers and landlords, we settled on a new office just a short distance away.

The new layout is much more square and with new paint, carpet and lights, it is a welcome change for the Florida team. Meanwhile we have a floor plan and know who is going to sit where. This is often a real challenge but we took the direct approach and let the team figure it out for themselves. It seems to have worked.

We also opted for lower cube walls. We hope this will encourage more conversation and less isolation. Plus, with people periodically working from home, it’s nice to be able to see who is in the office without having creep down dark hallways looking for signs of life.

With the acquisition still very clear in our rear-view mirror, this move feels like a clean break, a new start. We’re leaving the old company behind and taking on our new identity.

This is a new office for us, but not a new building. I wonder about the stories that were created here and those that we will create. I wonder who thought of putting that ethernet jack half way up the wall! There are random switches and outlets all over the place, some blanked off and some clearly added later; more old stories. 

It’s going to be a busy day – there are still cubes to assemble and wiring to complete; sometimes things don’t always happen in the order you have planned. With only a handful of working days before Christmas and a rapidly expiring lease at the old office, we will deal with it.

At the old office, I hear that activity is brisk. Movers have arrived, last minute items are being packed and a gracious member of the team is cleaning the fridge. This will no doubt involve disposing of numerous science experiments and past best buy dated items.

Staff are starting to appear, looking excited and wondering when their stuff will arrive and looking forward to a new start with a new company in a new building.

Bring on 2020!