Well, needless to say I survived last week. Despite the numerous rocks thrown in my path the office did get moved, the data and phone networks were eventually brought online and the unpacking is nearly completed. There will be plenty of finishing touches to complete, but these can be done at a relatively leisurely pace. But, at this point in time My office is basically set up with only a couple of boxes awaiting some sort of bookcase/shelving to come in before being unloaded. As I type, my boss is trying to assemble his Ikea window blinds (his office windows front right onto a sidewalk and he's becoming a bit bored already with feeling like an animal on exhibit at the zoo). The only pieces we're waiting on to complete the major load-in are our conference table, which will arrive Monday, and a buffet sideboard for our conference room, which is on back-order and may not ship until after the first of the year. Otherwise, we're more-or-less back to business as usual.
And I've walked to and from work three out of four days so far this week. Unfortunately, I also seem to have hit a bit of a plateau, and am struggling to get below 200 lbs. I'm holding steady, but haven't dropped any weight for the past few days.
The fundraiser went remarkably well; not as many in attendance as would have been my preference, but the staff was overjoyed, and despite the somewhat (IMO) middling turnout a good time was had by all. I've probably already mentioned it a thousand times, but one more won't hurt: my undying gratitude to everyone - performers, volunteers, artists, contributors - for helping to make it a success. I learned a lot in the process, and should be able to do an even better job of it next year - just have to figure out when to do it, since Halloween falls on a Sunday in 2010.
We Got To Move These Refrigerators, We Got To Move These Color TV's
It appears I made it to 49 after all. The way this past week started out, I wasn't exactly full of confidence I'd survive in good enough shape to be more than a blubbery pile of goo on the floor by now, but despite the set backs, the delays, all the things that were supposed to go one way, but insisted on going the other, here I am.
The second team of movers proved more than equal to the task, even despite the fact that our massive main reception desk initially couldn't be maneuvered out of the old office. But, removal of a few drop-ceiling panels and brackets gave us enough clearance to just squeeze it out.
And the guy who did our data line wiring just happened to be available for a brief window and was able to come in and rewire the entire phone system on Thursday, plus fix a couple of boo-boos (totally my fault) that were overlooked during his first installation.
So, once again, just about everything came down to the absolute wire. But, the good news is the phone system was up and running on Friday morning, we sussed out our data network and all the various and sundry machines are happily beeping and booping with each other and - most importantly - with the outside world. The only negatives at this point are one network jack that seems to be on-the-fritz, and the fact that my boss picked up a virus on his laptop most likely due to the temporary jury-rigged Internet connection we set up earlier in the week (we ganged my co-worker's Clear Wire modem to my wireless router, but had to leave everything open and unsecured, because nobody else could get my WEP access code to work - the techno-geeks among you know what I'm talkin' 'bout).
Friday morning I rented a small storage locker and in the afternoon picked up a rental van, and we all schlepped over to the old office to clean out the last of the odds-and-ends, hauled it all back to the new office, emptied the truck, then filled it with about 60 bankers boxes full of old documents we don't need on-site, but aren't allowed to throw away, and my boss and I then took them over to the storage facility and loaded them in. Even though I rented the smallest space they had available, we still only managed to fill it to about one-third capacity, which means we can still get to things in the highly unlikely event we ever need to access anything.
The final bit of business was to contract with someone to clean out the detritus still left at the old space and haul it off to the dump/recylers. There's a company in the same building that does this, but their estimate was IMO somewhat excessive, so I contacted the building maintenance man (the same guy who drove me to distraction on the kitchen counter project), and he underbid by about $200. Plus, he would have had to check us out of the space anyway, so this way we don't have to worry about that part of things either. He came by around 5:00 p.m., we handed him a check and all the keys and access cards for the old building and parking garage, and so the moving part is now officially done.
There's still a huge amount of work to do: lots of re-arranging, moving things into place, getting rid of packaging, along with general clean-up and a final move in of a couple of items, most notably our conference table which is in the process of having its surface refinished. But that will happen next week - or beyond.
I finally managed to attack my new office on Friday, and even in the short amount of time I was able to devote to it, got it into workable shape; now it's just a matter of dealing with the finishing touches, and turning the place into our new home. We have about a month before our annual Holiday Party, which should be plenty of time.
So, tomorrow it'll be back to a somewhat normal routine, plus playing catch-up on the rather modest backlog of things that didn't get dealt with last week. It's just good to have it all over and done with - the scope of this project turned out to be akin to the massive build-out at the Theatre I managed in the spring of 2008; just as nerve-wracking, frustrating, but ultimately satisfying in its completion.
Now, all I have to do today is whip together a ginormous fundraiser for tonight.
The Good Ship And True Was A Bone To Be Chewed When The Gales Of November Came Early
So, today is Moving Day. With the help of several over-the-counter pharmaceuticals (Thanks, VLW for the TheraFlu recommendation!) I managed 12 straight hours of sleep last night; not nearly enough to make up for three weeks continuous sleep-deprivation, but sufficient to get me through the day.
And I'm sure you're all sitting on the edge of your seats wondering how the day's been going, right? (Humor me, please. I could use a little levity right about now.)
Well, let's start with what's gone RIGHT so far - oh, wait. NOTHING has gone right so far.
Which leaves the following as "A Partial Listing OF What's Gone WRONG Today":
- The office movers apparently have never actually moved an office before, at least not one comprised of anything that weighs more than about 100 pounds. They can't take our regular household sized refrigerator or the largest pieces of office furniture.
- On top of that, the arrival time that I had scheduled for 9:00 a.m. turned out in actuality to be more like 12:00 Noon, which worked out somewhat seeing as how it was pouring rain for most of the morning anyway. The question now is, can they get back from the new site, pack up the remainder of what needs to go and then off-load it before 5:00 p.m.? My guess is, "probably not". So, how long in fact WILL it take them? Your guess is as good as mine at this point.
- As if that weren't enough, some of the pieces of furniture they were able to move won't fit through the doors to the rooms they're assigned (e.g. my new office desk). So, I'm going to have to disassemble a couple of pieces before they can be put into place, then reassemble them again. Not a huge task, just another thing to add to the ever growing List Of Things Still To Be Done.
- The phone lines went dead at around 9:30 this morning. That was expected, since they have to be switched off at one location before they can be activated at the other. Strangely however, the DSL line didn't go dead at the same time. When I called the phone company a couple of hours later, it turns out the service tickets for our three separate accounts hadn't been linked together, so the DSL switchover hadn't been scheduled until Friday! By the time I got that straightened out and got the deinstall/reinstall moved up to tomorrow, I got a call from our phone system tech who was trying to reinstall that end of things at the new location saying that: A of all.) all the phone jacks in our office need to be rewired because they're an old-style residential system that can't handle our multi-line system, and; B of all.) he doesn't have the equipment to do that kind of work, because it's going to require drilling through "hardpan walls" (there are no drop ceilings or fancy metal studs with convenient punch-outs through which to drop cable).
So, where did that leave me? The movers can't complete the move, the phone system company can't complete the install, my new office isn't even going to have a desk in it when I get over there, and I'm sitting in a half-empty office that currently looks like a complete and utter disaster area trying to juggle multiple calls on my cell phone - and it looks like it's going to start raining again any minute now.
Okay, maybe I exaggerated just slightly above; despite the continuous series of wild fires a few things have gone my way today: I found a professional office mover who, on less than 24 hours notice can pick up and deliver our larger items, and at the same rate as what I'm being charged by the other moving company. Also, after yet another call to the Business Services Dept. at QWest, I not only managed to get a second service order set up to install the DSL tomorrow, but they'll come prepared to drill in the additional phone lines as well.
As I write this, the movers are back for a second load, but they're going to leave behind most of the other file cabinets & desks. It's okay, I've already called the other movers and they can handle it within their window tomorrow morning.
And at least I've still got Internet access at work (that's also A Thing That's Gone Wrong, but one I can still use to my advantage.)
AND I haven't strangled anyone.
AND and I haven't gone completely bonkers.
AND AND after all the hubbub and insanity of the past several weeks I just now realized how quiet and peaceful it is here in the office right now.
Hm, maybe a little TOO quiet.
Like, the sort of quiet one might experience in the eye of a hurricane...
'Tis The Song The Sigh Of The Weary, Hard Times Hard Times Come Again No More
I didn't think we were going to make it - and it did in fact come right down to the wire. As of 10:00 p.m. last night the kitchen still wasn't completely finished and it was another sleepless night filled with thoughts of dread and dire vengeance.
At this point I'm so sleep deprived I've almost completely lost all sense of time: I drove a few miles north yesterday afternoon to attend a party at a friend's house that was actually scheduled for this evening. Tonight, I went back, was there for two hours and it felt like I'd been there all day. It's now 7:30 p.m. and I'm fully intending to crawl into bed as soon as I finish typing this.
This is the lesson I've learned about contractors: if you give them a deadline they will push you right up to it, within hours even. I think they get some perverse sort of pleasure out of watching their clients squirm and fidget and palpably vibrate just for the thrill of enpowerment it must give them; why else put another human being through that kind of torture?
But, whatever. It's done. There are still a handful of tiny details to complete, little bits-and-pieces that only someone who's been staring at that same spot on the wall for three straight months would probably even notice. But, from a purely functional perspective, those can be dealt with.
It's done, over, finito and we start moving at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. , Only of course, it's not done, and probably won't be for weeks, for however long it takes us to settle in and work the kinks out of the new space, the ones I hadn't even thought of.
Enough from me. The TheraFlu is almost gone. Time for bed.
Things are starting to get close to the wire for both of my major projects. The new space is maddeningly close to being finished; the kitchen sink, dishwasher & counters should be completed by tomorrow latest, then there are a couple of tiny build-out projects that - hopefully - will be done before the weekend. Then, I've got a small amount of touch-up painting and a couple of minor projects to complete this weekend before Moving Day on Monday. But as of now, we're about 98% of the way to having the new space completed.
I've finally begun packing up my office, which isn't going to take me very long, but there's also a great deal of sorting, trashing/recycling and packing up to do in the main office as well. Fortunately, my co-workers are handling most of this, but I still have to go through things in storage to decide what we have to keep (financial records mostly), and what we can toss. What's time-consuming is that I'm having to make some sort of trip - to the office supply or hardware store, over to the new space to deal with a delivery - just about every day, so between that and the normal day-to-day work that still needs to get done AND walking people around the office to show them what we have available to "take away" (e.g. the book case in my office that was moved out not ten minutes ago) I just haven't had much time to devote to this part of the move.
Still, things continue to move in a forward direction and despite the rampant insomnia that's been waking me up at around 4:00 a.m. every morning for the past week, I'm feeling reasonably confident that we're going to pull this off - not necessarily without a hitch; that would be too much to ask - but well enough that we should be more-or-less business as usual by mid-week.
I'm Bound To Pack It Up, I'm Bound To Pack It Up And Go Away
Hard to believe the office move is a mere four weeks away. So far, things have gone relatively smoothly; the build-out is essentially done, with just a little bit of network cabling left to install, and what's turned out to be the most complicated project, tracking down a suitable sink cabinet to install in the kitchen.
Turns out that, because of the location of the plumbing and the dimensions of the room, a standard six-foot sink and counter won't fit - we've only got a five foot opening between the stove and a portable dishwasher we're bringing in - so after rather exhaustive research, it looks like we're going to have to have one custom-built; which is fine actually, since the handyman at our current location is willing to do it, and can get the job done a lot sooner than the 4 - 6 weeks shipping lag we've been given by other businesses, and for several hundred dollars less than the cheapest commercial estimate we've been given.
Otherwise, it's a matter of starting the process of packing what we're going to take, consolidating and getting rid of our excess office furniture, shredding no-longer-needed documents, and making sure all the little "i"'s have been dotted and "t"'s crossed between now and the 26th, when the move itself is scheduled.
Then of course, there's the "making sure everything ends up in the right place and that all the machines work like their supposed to" part that happens immediately afterward, at which point we can actually think about settling in, which hopefully won't take more than a few days.
Because I have a major fundraiser for the theatre happening the following weekend.
And a board meeting the following Monday.
And then, I think I'll deserve a bit of a vacation.
Sooooo, I keep thinking there hasn't been all that much going on lately, and thus nothing of real import to convey, but then I realize the reason I think that is because I've been so darned busy of-late that I haven't had much time to think much about all the things I HAVE been doing.
A brief summary to-wit:
Although the office move is still a good two months away, there's been a huge amount of prep work involved: for example, I've been dealing on an almost daily basis with the contractors who are building out the new space, which frequently involves mid-day site visits to check on progress, answer questions, clarify where things are supposed to go, etc., etc.. Fortunately, we have lots of time to get this phase completed, and the contractors are making excellent progress, so that part of the job should be finished by next week, which will give me a little bit of a break before dealing with the second phase, namely, starting to get the current office ready for the physical move.
In addition to the above of course, I'm simultaneously identifying and implementing the various logistical elements involved with the move: securing the services of a mover, document disposal, scheduling with the phone companies, the post office, getting change-of-address info out to vendors, our members, and our national staff, getting bids on new signage, et al, along with starting the process of figuring out what we're getting rid of, what we're taking, and where it's all going to live once it gets there.
And of course, all of this is occurring in the midst of our normal, day-to-day work load, which has been much busier this late summer than normal. The TV series shooting down in Portland is winding up for the season, but because the last two episodes are being shot simultaneously (I'm guessing it's a two-parter), it's essentially doubled the amount of work we would normally need to do during an equivalent time-frame. Plus, they're adding and subtracting cast as the scripts and shooting-schedules change, so I've literally been on the phone with their Associate Producer and/or modifying cast clearances three or even four times a day. It's not a huge amount of extra work, but it is high-priority, so anything I happen to be doing at the time gets dropped; definitely messes up the "flow".
On the good side though, they've been renewed for a 3rd season, and it looks very likely they'll return to PDX for shooting next spring.
And in the middle of all of this, I'm well into week four of the ELDM diet. Haven't actually started weighing myself, as I thought I'd try to drop a few pounds before self-inflicting the dread of whatever scale number is going to come up, but I continue to notice a gradual loss of extra padding, to the point where a couple of days ago I could actually see something that vaguely looks like a rib beginning to show through; just one mind you, so I've got quite a ways to go before I have to start worrying about losing too much (!), but it's an encouraging start.
Things at the theatre are in a bit of a lull for the moment. We just closed our final shows of the season, and are officially on a teensy hiatus until the next show opens in late October, although we have a month-long "mini fringe festival" event coming in starting next week.
Actually, it's pretty exciting. Back in 1991 Seattle was the first U.S. city to put on a Fringe Theatre Festival (there had been several running in Canada prior to that), but it went belly-up in 2003. Still, a lot of Seattle performers have continued to ply the Canadian and eastern U.S. festival circuit, and they've frequently returned with reports of terrific performances and companies that no longer have an opportunity to be seen here. So, a bright, ambitious individual, one Andrew Connor, himself a veteran of the fringe fest circuit, has decided to do something about this, namely, to invite a whole passel of fellow festival acts to Seattle for a month-long "best of" mini-fringe fest, appropriately titled, The Suitcase Festival.
Annex has had an ongoing relationship with Andrew and his company for a couple of years now, and we've been kicking around ideas for some time as to ways we could collaborate, so this was pretty much a no-brainer so far as our Company was concerned. Several of the groups are local, but most aren't, so this will be the first chance in a long time (if not the first time ever) that Seattle audiences will have so see these companies perform.
And who knows? Maybe it'll get people here excited about the idea of reviving the now long-somnolent Seattle Fringe Festival...
