When last we left our hero, she was being kicked off her computer so it could be moved to a new floor.

Well, I managed to get to the morning of the third day after the move to the image floor until I got into trouble. Go me! Two full days of not being noticed. ARgggg, I really don’t like this move.

We are trying to clean up some filing, getting old stuff into off-site storage, organize current files, toss things that should be tossed. A co-worker and I started to pull the files out of the cabinets and sort them. On the floor of course. We were out of walk path and sitting on the floor, sorting through files. The assistant of the big boss (the one who’s office I sit near) came over to us to explain that we have high level interviews happening all through the day and one of the interviewees is the CEO of one of our clients and we can’t sit on the floor. When we tried to find out what our option are about doing the work (can we sit on the floor down on floor 33, is there a conference room we can take over, an office) she just got stuck on the “can’t do what you are doing and don’t disagree with me” mode. Poor woman, she was really feeling bad needing to tell us that we can’t do what we were doing. We really appreciated her letting us know because we don’t know where the line of “appropriate” lies on this floor. The only reason we wouldn’t have done it on our old floor is that the area right in front of the cabinets is the primary walkway and we would be in people’s way. We finally transfered everything into an empty office nearby and locked ourselves in to do the sorting and boxing. Can’t have anyone see us do grunt work, that would be a bad image for the company. There are other floors for grunt work to be done on and it should be seen on this floor where the clients visit. For some reason, the TVs on the floor tuned to the Olympics are ok. I have a feeling I will be asking about this before a month goes by.

An additional joy of working out of sight is that our boss, who normally trusts us to do our work was expressing that he has a hard time believing it took all morning and half the afternoon to go through the files for the level we sorted them (it took us too long and we didn’t sort them as much as he expected). We get the idea he thinks we were blowing off work and just socializing. We know that while we got socializing in, we did it while plowing through a mountain of files. It took a lot less time than we expected and we slacked off less than we normally do. Our boss is also doing a few other annoying things that are uncharacteristic and I am ready to take him to task. I realize he is probably doing it because he is feeling the stress as well but these are going to be issues. Because intellectually I realize it is probably due to the same stress I am under, I am waiting until I am not as angry to talk to him about it, but I want to march him into a room and let him have it with both barrels. I want to use my height and my seniority and the value I have to our work to pound into him that his attitude/behavior is unacceptable and he either will change it or I will adjust by reducing my support and not be as easy going. ARggggg. This is just an emotional response over something rather small brought on by stress. My stressed response to his stressed induced action. I realize this and I will act accordingly but ARggggg.

Over all, the new digs aren’t that bad. There are good things about it and I am trying to let go of my grip on being unhappy to appreciate them. Right now, I feel like I have to constantly watch myself. Over time, that should reduce if not go away. I hate waiting for stuff like this. One of the reasons I feel I can post this is because it is written in Notepad and will be transfered.

One of the things I am afraid of is that I will adjust. That by adjusting to this environment, I will become more my introverted self, that I will pull back into myself, shut down. Go back to Practicing to Be Plastic. I have done this before and I find it is not healthy for me. Those that have known me over the last 8 years or more will probably remember the last time I hit this not healthy state 6 years ago when I disappeared from the social scene. I thought it would be for a month and it turned out to be more like 4 years. (It brings a smile to my face that there actually are a few – more than one – people that read my journal that will remember this time period. That means that I am still friends with people even over such a long time and that I was able to reconnect to people after disappearing. This makes me happy.) Others can do this Practice to be Plastic thing and it is no big deal. I do it and I my soul starts to shrivel. I think that is the reason I am having such a strong reaction to all this. Intellectually, I know I have many points of opting out along the way if I am heading down a dark path but I am so afraid of the destination that I don’t even want to start down a possible path. If I accept the good, I might not notice the bad until I am already damaged. But if I don’t accept the good, then I am making myself suffer when I don’t have to. Once again, Argggg.

So, that is the update on the work situation.