March 25, 2009
Dear Everyone:
At work we have something called “Space Standards”.
Space Standards means whatever Company “Boring and Really
Expensive Services” (CBRES) says it means.
Back when they were renovating Building V, it meant ripping out
all the non-weight-bearing walls and putting in 8X8 cubicles.
That proved to be rather expensive.
Today, Space Standards means what we call TSIO (Two
Squeezed Into One) where two people occupy an office originally intended
to hold one person. It also
means something called a “Huddle Room”.
A Huddle Room is simply a small conference room big enough to
hold four to six people.
Huddle Rooms were originally intended to be used for impromptu meetings
where a few people just needed a spot to get together and work on
something for an hour or so.
While official Conference Rooms could be reserved, Huddle Rooms could
not. They were strictly
“first come, first served.”
We had two Huddle Rooms when we were in Building E.
When we first moved into Building G almost a year
ago, one of the “offices” in our hallway was designated a Huddle Room.
There were four more in the next hallway over.
But until recently, these Huddle Rooms were just empty office
space and generally unusable.
In the last month or so, the workmen marked the rooms “Hard Hat
Only” while they installed electric wiring, furniture and monitors on
large floor-stands. A few
weeks ago, the Huddle Rooms became “operational”.
They also became “reserve-able”.
CBRES had discovered a relatively cheap and easy way for people
to reserve a Huddle Room, or for that matter, most Conference Rooms.
They put all the rooms into
Microsoft Outlook (the email and
calendar system). You could look
up a room the same way you could look up a person, to see if it (or
they) were “busy” at any particular time.
If the room has no appointments booked on a
particular day or time, you simply block out the time and “make” an
appointment for the room. If
someone has already made an appointment, they got there first.
Go look for another room.
So far, it’s working OK.
The only thing people have noticed is that the Huddle Rooms don’t
have little tables or carts in the corner, like our old Huddle Rooms in
Building E had. Another
cost-cutting “feature” by CBRES.
Condo update…
I took last Friday as the first vacation day of
2009 so I could be at the condo when the carpet layers arrived.
They were expected between 10:00 AM and 1:00 PM.
I got there at 9:55.
They were already there and came walking up the sidewalk as soon as they
saw me approach the front door.
They ripped out the old carpet in nothing flat and
had the whole job finished by 2:15.
The new carpet looks great with the new paint, much lighter than
before. I had so much time
left over that I went out and ordered a new
refrigerator.
They even delivered it on Sunday, the same day that our friend,
the plumber, was coming to install the new toilets.
He arrived at about 10:00 Sunday morning.
The new refrigerator arrived at 10:15.
It has all the bells and whistles, including filtered, chilled
water and ice in the door and even an indicator to tell me when to order
and when to install a new filter.
There was just one snag and it had to do with the
old toilets. Apparently,
when the apartment was converted to a condo, the plumber used by the
developer cut a few corners.
Our plumber discovered a problem with the
flanges, which help connect
the toilet to the pipe to the sewer system.
It took him nearly four hours to install just one toilet.
Hopefully, he’s coming back next weekend to finish
the other one. In the
meantime, at least one bathroom is fully functional.
The moving company representative is coming to the townhouse this
Friday to make an estimate for the move.
I have to work next Monday and Tuesday (there’s a
mandatory “townhall” to explain our new position in the new structure
set up by our new Operating Company President.)
Then I’m off Wednesday to pack, move on Thursday, unpack and
settle in on Friday. I’ll
have the weekend, plus the following Monday and Tuesday to start in on
renovating the townhouse to get it ready to sell.
So no Letter next week, but lots of news the week
after.
Love, as always,
Pete
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