Finally!  We’ve moved the staff into the new office space which feels like we’ve been building for years.  Can I say that I just hate construction?  And all the millions of decisions that go into creating a new office space.

I think we tested 3 colors on the wall and that was after a number of paint chip discussions.  File cabinets and furniture that were supposed to take forever arrived in mere days.  We had to rent a trailer to store the mountain of incredibly large boxes.  Those were the tiny bumps in the road.  One of the fun bumps was the security installation that put its glass break detectors in spots that screwed up the ceiling lighting plan.  Arrghh.  Delays were the order of the day.

And we decided to bypass the local rep and direct order the office system.  That meant installing it ourselves (hiring the contractor to do it).  Seemed like a good idea until we saw the instructions were well less than stellar.  Let me just say that they look easy to assemble, but not so much.

The cubicles in the bull pen area (pictured) turned out awesome.  Not quite as “sound deadening” as promised but the cubicles are large, with great work surfaces and a large “binder bin” on each side.  For now, the staff has more space in their cubicles than they can even imagine filling.

We’re still organizing, changing out old file cabinets, loading in the supplies and the kitchen items, figuring out that I can’t walk into the bull pen and shout someone’s name because people are on the phone.  Ahem.  That’s a hard one.

But we’re in.  We’re operational and only hideously behind instead of non-functional.  Once the contractor does about ten tiny chores, like putting up the blinds, we’ll be completely finished with the office.  We had to move in before they finished everything.  Shelving in the supply closet was only finished the end of last week!

Isn’t it lovely?  (Remember this is like someone asking you if their baby is pretty.  You say, “Yes.”)

For those who may know some of the staff:  Brittany on the left has her back to camera and the summer intern is on the right.