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Well, the claiming of this space at the desk I use every day continues unabated.
Shobhit must have read
my post yesterday, because when he was getting ready to come meet me downtown for the movie he was going to see with Laney and me, he texted to ask if I wanted him to bring me the desk plant.
At first I was a little confused. I assumed I would need to drive the plant back; I took it home from the other office in the car, after all. But when I asked for clarification, he said he would walk it down carrying it in a tote bag. Hmm, okay. Whatever works.
I was only a tiny bit anxious about this, as no one else has laid claim to a single desk that way I already have, but also no one has said anything to me about it. I'm kind of learning that simply testing limits can be the way to go around here, to a degree anyway, and depending on the limit being tested I suppose. I've left my laptop and keyboard on my desk every single day since we've been at this new office. Ditto my plastic paper holder thing, and now two different tumbler bottles on coasters. A plant, though, is kind of more overt than any of those things: no one expects a plant to move for any reason, not even if I go on PTO and someone else uses my desk while I'm gone.
I noted yesterday that Tracy had occupied the desk to my left yesterday, being the first one besides Noah to use that one, and altering Noah's monitor setup. Tracy is back today too, but he chose a desk two rows behind me, facing the same direction, with no one else in that row today as I write this. I feel like Tracy is kind of making a thing of mixing up the desk he uses any time he comes in. Noah isn't in today, so now his desk is sitting empty.
Today, there is no one else in my three-desk row, and only Michael in the Deli is using one of the desks in the four-desk row behind me (my row has only three because of a large pillar). I suspect Tracy used the desk to my left yesterday largely because everyone in Deli was in yesterday and they had all otherwise filled up the desks around me. So far this morning, this has been a much quieter Friday than last Friday was, and feels a lot more like I expected Fridays to be like from the start.
I'm kind of wondering about Benny, though. He usually comes in at least four days a week, but I haven't seen him in several days. He has nothing noted on the department PTO tracker. I wonder if he's sick?
Anyway. I finally
took a picture of my desk, right after arriving this morning. You can see where I put the plant; the "MATTHEW" sign that Grant put on the backer of my desk is visible to the right and behind the plastic paperwork stand—this is what says "MERCHANDISING" in all the others of the 18 desks allocated to Merchandising. As I write this, there are six of us in Merchandising in-office today, which is a third of our allocation. Other departments are sitting totally empty.
Noth my tumbler drinks were on the desk when I took the photo; I use one for tea and one for water. The water one is hidden behind the plastic paperwork stand from this angle. And as I write this, my bike helmet is behind the plastic stand—I forgot it for about an hour on the rolling rack thing right outside the bathrooms this morning, as I still always go straight to the bathroom to wash my hands as soon as I arrive at work every morning.
I don't know, I guess I'm already kind of getting used to this. Others may be taking longer to get used to it just because they only work in-office once or twice a week. I'd be the only person who has now worked in this office nine days. I guess I'll wait a little while before I start bringing other stuff back to the office that I previously took home, particularly stuff I want to hang on the backer wall to the desk. I do kind of wonder how long it will be before anyone else starts taking a cue from me and personalizing space, though. It may depend on how often they work in the office.
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I was on the phone with Amanda this morning, and got a bit of a surprise when suddenly Darrell, the former VP of Merchandising, caught my eye. He was standing behind Mackenzie, who is sitting in the desk facing mine today. I don't think he realized I was on the phone though, even though I was in the middle of talking and had a clearly visible head set in my ear.
"You're so focused on your work!" he said. I did smile and acknowledge him, but didn't really talk to him. I was on the phone! I guess I could have noted that to him. Whatever. It was a pretty unexpected thing to suddenly see him in here. I don't think I really ever expected to see him again after he left.
After a few minutes I asked Kevin, who is sitting to the left of Mackenzie (to her right), what Darrell was doing here. Even Kevin said, "I have no idea." Okay then. Then Kevin quipped: "He's back from the dead. It's like 'Hotel California.' You can check out any time but you can never leave." Ha! Okay, so maybe he was a ghost. The Ghost of Merchandising Past.
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Oh, right. I went to a movie last night with Shobhit and Laney. Laney met at the theater at 5:00; Shobhit showed up at 4:30 with my potted plant. I had just put it on my desk when Tracy came back from a meeting. I did wonder if Tracy would say anything about the plant, but I had just finished futzing with it and I'm not sure he even noticed. He certainly noticed Shobhit, and took the opportunity to rave about his samosas. He even asked Shobhit when he's going to "level up production" so we can sell them at our stores. Can you imagine?
Anyway, Shobhit and I had half an hour to kill so we walked a block out of our way on our way over to Pacific Place. Laney arrived while Shobhit was in the bathroom on the second floor. Then we all saw
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. Just like the other two movies, it was fine. I've given all three of them a solid B.
Laney had done too much walking recently and took the bus home. Shobhit might have taken the bus but didn't have enough funds on his pass, so he and I walked, which I preferred anyway. We got home and I spent a little over an hour writing the review. Then we watched the first of three episodes of
Only Murders in the Building that dropped this week, launching season five on Hulu. I was too tired to watch the other two yet though, so I went to bed.
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I just had my biweekly Zoom lunch with Karen—my first from the new office. All our phone rooms now have full desks with dual external monitors in them, which usually I'm very happy with. I even tried to connect to them for this Zoom with Karen, but pretty quickly disconnected it just because it resulted in me looking too far above my laptop screen where Karen's image feed was. I preferred to look down there where it had me looking closer to the actual camera, and thus would make it look more to Karen like I was actually looking at her on her end.
It was still nice having more surface area for the laptop than I had at that
little table in the old office phone room I used to use.
Anyway. Even though we just saw each other at her Tulalip house last weekend, we had plenty to talk about today. Some of it was about this new office, and a lot of it was about travel plans—Shobhit's and my trip to Amsterdam next year; her recently-planned weekend visit to Portland next month. Plenty of other stuff, nothing momentous. I need to post this now and I really need to pee, so, until next time!
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[posted 1:11pm]
