Okay, we're five hours into our occupancy of the new building. What have we learnt?
Well, I was quick to spot the potential health and safety hazard in the men's toilets; if you're using them in the standing position, you run the risk of being thwacked in the back and splatted against the wall by someone opening the cubicle behind you. Which I believe has since happened, though not to me. Some kind of alarm system might be in order.
But otherwise, so far it's been reasonably painless. On Friday we packed all our stuff into crates; over the weekend the pixies moved it for us and set it all up in our new positions; and here we are. We're all already having to adjust to slightly less space to put things in (one desk and a couple of cupboards each, as opposed to an entire room) but I'm sure we'll get there. The new coffee machine is better than the old, and its drinks are hotter, but still not as good as coffee bags.
The new IP phone system takes a little getting used to. You have to login to use your phone? I mean, come on. I'm glad we've moved beyond "press button A, press button B" but you can overshoot.
The drawers in our desks have been specially provided by Sirius Cybernetics, so they can't wait to shut to fulfil the drawerness of your experience of using them. Thus, lots of loud bangs until we all get used to just giving them a very tiny shove. My monitor has lost its ability to tilt and hopefully I'll manage not to kick out the cables that go into the floor right between my feet.
I've heard more conversation in the customer service department in one morning than I've heard in the last four years, so the open plan thing seems to be working. Part of that conversation was "he's the lovechild of Lionel Richie and Bruce Forsyth." What a shame I was only passing through.
So, feeling seems to be positive on Day 1, by and large and generally speaking. And the downstairs Mens is out of order. Someone must have thwacked too hard. (UPDATE at 3.30pm: in fact, we've now been asked not to pull the chains in the upstairs Mens either. Good grief, what are my co-genderists doing??)
