A Strange Wrongness

I took my ID badge with me when I went to get my car taken care of. Partly because I thought I’d stop in for a minute because work was sort of in between the car dealer and home. And partly because it made me feel more “normal”. Weird but true. The ID badge says I belong somewhere. I’m doing some work at some location. I don’t look old enough to be truly retired so I should be working. Isn’t that how this goes?

I did stop in essentially to pack up a box of junk that I wanted to get into the trash today. The longer I’m out, the more “wrong” it feels to be going in to the office. There is just something about being out of the loop that makes the place feel different and make me feel like I no longer belong. I mean the stuff that happens on a daily basis is mostly mundane stuff but when you were going to meetings and talking with people, you had some idea of what was going on. Now, things are still happening but I’m essentially out of the loop.

I was talking with a friend of mine and, trust me, I’m still very happy that I’m out. She was telling me that they want to move everyone in our department from the second floor (considering a whole bunch of spaces just opened up on the first floor) so they can move people from another building in. Its all about costs. The bean counters on high charge our division for the space we occupy so, since we are struggling, we need to take up less space. They may try to spin this in a different way but it isn’t a sign of strength.

Oh and the people in the other building are in the “open seating” concept so they are going to retrofit the second floor to take out all the cubes and create vast seating areas where they can cram more bodies into the same space. I find it funny that there are animal rights organizations that protest things like veal farming when calves are basically herded into small little pens but the corporate world things it is fine to cram people together to save money. I actually walked through the building where these people are coming from and the seating plan was just long tables with people crammed together. You’ve got just enough desk space for your laptop and that’s about it. No personal items at all. I guess this is the wave of the future but I can’t believe it does anything for productivity. I would assume at some point that there will be a rebellion and leading management thinking will agree that you should treat people like veal calves.

Yes, I know the people can get up and move around if it gets to be too claustrophobic having people on either side of you. But it still feels like being trapped in a middle seat on a crowded plane. Yes, you can get up to stretch your legs but, sooner or later, you have to return to your seat. Not to mention the fun of sitting next to someone who is so dedicated they come in hacking and sneezing. If this is where the corporate world is going, then I’m glad I’m out.

I also dragged myself downstairs to use our treadmill. Thought about going to the fitness center at work but it was raining and I didn’t want to spend that much time at work. I came home and started to do some stuff and then just decided I really needed to get in the habit of doing some exercise. Still didn’t quite get to my step goal though so I might have to increase my time to make up for the fact that I’m not having to walk around the building to got to meetings or get coffee.

I know many of these posts probably have the same general theme. I don’t suppose you can really be prepared for a life changing event like this. Just got lots to think about and rather than just totally retreating inside my head, I work some stuff out here for all to see.