My Office Make My Face Hurt

Have you ever seen an architect’s office that completely and totally sucks? Neither have I … but I am about to lose my cool with my current working situation.

I have indicated my work area … cleverly (and accurately) identified as “Bob’s ‘Box of Hell'”. This is basically the same working environment that I have had since I moved over to my new job as hero and savior. So why am I bellyaching and complaining about things now?

We have had the very good fortune to be growing and as a result, we are bursting at the seams and there is crap everywhere! I probably shouldn’t call it “crap”, it’s actually a lot of important stuff, the thing to focus in on (and I don’t know how you can miss it) is that “stuff” is everywhere. I used to have my own private office which I sorely, and desperately miss. When I first moved over, there was a slight adjustment needed on my part to transition between loads of space that was carefully (and artfully) arranged in a meaningful manner, and the 6′ x 6′ “Box of Hell” I am currently caged in.

In my “good old days” office (I will refer to this as my “GOD” office from now on) I had the room to spread out full size drawings – which is pretty important considering what I do for a living. If I wanted to listen to some music, I didn’t have to put on headphones. People didn’t ask me simple questions, because that meant they had to get up from their work area and walk around the corner and come into my office and wake me up. In my current work environment, people can literally swivel around in their chair and tap me on the shoulder. The number of defeated eye-rolls I issue daily is increasing exponentially.

Ugh. There are times when it is too much and when the time comes to go home, I have a hard time remembering what I did all day because it gets chopped up into dozens of blocks consisting of 5 minutes. I will also admit, in an effort of full disclosure, that I might have lost my sh*t a time or two when I had to rearrange everything on my 42 linear inches of desk just so I could unroll a drawing and answer a question. A drink might have been spilled at those moments … I can’t remember, I think I blacked out as the blood suddenly drained from my head as I raised my arms and shook my fists at the ceiling.

If you were coming into our office for a meeting, this is what our “lobby” space looks like …

Drawing tubes and moving boxes are everywhere. Normally there is a bicycle in this space but I get to work before everyone (no, I didn’t ask everyone to move around the office as I was taking these pictures...) If I need to pull a drawing out of the flat file … good luck with that.

Seriously.

Did I mention that the air conditioning in our office is more of a state of mind than actual cold air? I’m surprised that there aren’t more typo’s in this post because my fingers are slipping around on the keyboard. It is so hot, that if I were to change into a polyester leisure suit and have a Cuban sandwich next to me, I’d think I was in the ‘del Boca Vista Retirement Community’ (although I wouldn’t eat the sandwich, the heat in here would make it digestively risky to consume).

Guess what this room is …

This is our conference room. We now have multiple people working this space. When we have “meetings” that actually require a “meeting” space, it requires a highly coordinated effort of “move your crap” and “go sit in the other room but don’t move any of my stuff.”

DO you know what happens when people go sit in the other room? They move your stuff.

We are currently in the process of building out a new office for ourselves and as a result, things are worse than normal because we are preparing to relocate. We are beginning the arduous process of packing up and relocating 5 years of stuff. The added sucky bonus is that the document or supplies you probably need is getting packed for the move.

Not Bob: You don’t need this stapler anymore, right?

Bob: What!? Gimme my stapler back.

Not Bob: Are you ready to have your project binders packed away?

Bob: No … we aren’t moving for another two weeks, pretty sure I’m going to need them. Go away.

Not Bob: Just trying to get out in front of the move, don’t want to leave it until the last second. How much longer you gonna sit in that chair?

Bob: [face palm]

.

I am so ready to leave this current office and move into our new one. It might not be my GOD office but it will be so much better than what I have (or more accurately “don’t” have) now. We will soon be out of our 754 square foot office and settling in to our new 1,700 square foot temple of “don’t-anybody-step-foot-in-my-work-space-without-an-appointment”.

Aaahhhhhhh. I can already imagine not smelling the person sitting next to me.

As a refresher, here is the new office plan that I sketched up what seems to be forever ago (it was February 24th, which is almost the same thing). My work space is shown in blue above, and if you’re curious, you can read ‘The Best Things about My Future New Office‘ if you want to know what my description is of each number shown above.

This is a look at our new office in its current state of construction … not very impressive is it? When are we moving you ask? Not soon enough no matter what the answer is but in this case, the actual answer is that in two weeks, we will be fully relocated, functional, and ready for business.

Hallelujah!!

Our office, despite its obvious current lack of completion, will come together very quickly. Almost everything has been shipped in to town; other than some wall finishes, glazing, and flooring, the millwork and benching furniture system we are using will make this office go from … well, this, to something so much better than Bob’s ‘Box of Hell’. I will obviously write a post about that, but I will also use that time to unveil the new company name (which finally includes “Borson” in it) the new company logo, and our new contact information.

Here’s to hoping that the next two weeks go smoothly …

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