— पांच हजार आठ सौ छियासठ —
And here we are: the last day at 3131 Elliott Avenue, Suite 500.
I find myself thinking about the last day we had at 4201 Roosevent Way. I went back to check
the blog post I wrote on
that day—Friday, July 29, 2016. Nine years ago. At that time, I had been working at the Roosevelt Way office for nine years, the only PCC office I had known, as the office had been there since 1989, and I had been there for 14. When we moved here to Elliott Avenue, we were actually told at the time that we had about a ten-year lease, but I never spent much time thinking about what the odds were that we'd actually move again after that much time—certainly not until last fall, when we first learned that this was the plan for summer 2025.
It felt so far off, even then. And here we are!
When I posed on the last day at the last office, the post had three shots of the office in various states of being packed—we do have
close to identical plastic tote boxes around the office this week, although we also have these
rolling stands for transporting them on, which I don't recall seeing the last time we moved.
There's a lot that's different between this move and the last one, not least of which is how much I loved this office, in a way I never loved the last one, with its cramped space and air circulation so terrible I caught seven colds my first year. Or was it five? I think it was seven. Whatever, I caught a bunch of colds. I never missed that office, and I might just miss this office at least little. God knows I'll miss the views—which I opted to embed photos of today rather than shots of packing bins.
There are two other key differences, particularly in terms of logistics. When we moved from the U District to Belltown (barely not Lower Queen Anne), we got all-new office furniture. This was basically what allowed us to end one work day on a Friday and then come back to work at the new location the very next Monday—although we did have our laptops issued by then, which I completely forgot, and we did have to take those home, just as we are now. But this time, because we are moving everything we can from this location to the Downtown location—including 82 of the desks themselves—we will not have our first day at the new location until the week
after next—on Tuesday, September 2, because September 1 is Labor Day. All of the office is expected to work from home next week, giving movers space to do their thing, which includes breaking down a lot of stuff. I won't be, of course; I'm using this opportunity to burn through PTO, because I hate working from home.
The other difference is that there's next to nobody working at the office today. I could probably assume that in at least a few cases, people deliberately avoided coming to the office today, but by and large this is how the office is on Fridays regardless. This is the ongoing permanence of the hybrid work model the world pivoted to in the wake of the pandemic, and has really been the case ever since the office was re-opened for everyone to work as many days as they want in-person as of the end of June 2021. Mondays and Fridays have long been kind of ghost towns around here, and will probably feel similarly at the new office. What few people are here will just be closer together.
In 2016, pizza was ordered to feed everyone, and the office was closed at 1:00. None of that stuff today. There aren't enough people here.
Amanda and Benny are working in-office today, so there's at least three of us in Merchandising. Michele, VP of IT, and Chris H, were going around this morning disconnecting monitors at all the empty desks. They were doing it at Brandy's desk right behind me, and I was like, "You're not gonna try to take mine are you? I'm not done!" It was more of a quip than a serious question. I was assured that as long as I leave by 5:00 I'll be fine. I said I leave at 4:30, and Chris said, "Perfect!"
— पांच हजार आठ सौ छियासठ —
— पांच हजार आठ सौ छियासठ —
I did send out my email this morning:
The End of an Era: 9 Years at 3131 Elliott Avenue, I put in the subject line. I used my "Year at PCC" label to populate the distribution list, and then I added the three people from the Office Relocation Committee who were not already on that list, plus Grant, the Office Administrator. That made a recipient list of 82 people, all of them either current or former PCC staff and some other vendor and broker contacts who also typically receive my travelogues.
It's gotten a lot of good response so far. Gabby messaged me on Teams to tell me it was "so good!!" Grant told me in person here at the office that it was "really sweet." And I just saw, while I was writing this, what Tristan sent me in reply, which was super nice:
Thankyou for sending this. I can't believe it made me cry- and laugh.
I feel a little sad today, but hopeful that our new space will be equally as interesting, at least while you are there 🙂
Have a good day, see you on the other side.
I spent a good portion of the evening last night finishing up that email, which included 24 photos, and of course countless links to more photos and video clips from the past nine years. I had originally intended to do 18 photos, which has long been the standard I strive for anyway but also would have worked out nicely as an average of two shots per year here. But, I couldn't bear to cut any of the 24 I stuck with. Thankfully it didn't cause any size limit issues with Gmail (the account I always use for my travelogues).
Shobhit had gone to a Seattle Men in Leather event at Diesel later last night, which gave me some time on my own to work on this. Prior to that, we watched the season 2 premiere of
Peacemaker on HBO Max. It was fine.
And prior to
that, I had ridden my bike home, with the very last of the stuff in my desk drawer inside a shoe box in my backpack. There's always more of that stuff than you think there is, but at least it's all at home, at least for now. Today I take home the rest of what I still have on my desktop: the laptop; the headset; my mouse; a plastic stand I use for printed calendars from Outlook; a couple bottles of hand lotion; my PCC tumbler I use for tea. By virtue of the laptop alone, I'll be carrying a heavier load today than I did yesterday.
And then I can just leave it all be for the next week. I'm leaving the keyboard here for recycling, as I signed up to get a new one at the new office. I could also have gotten a new mouse but I didn't feel the need. And at least getting stuff back to the new office will be a bit easier: I'll only be lugging it all one mile rather than 2.4 miles. And then a new era begins!
— पांच हजार आठ सौ छियासठ —
[posted 12:34pm]
