When I arrived for my interview that day, the contractors were working on the door I went through.
Actually, they were sealing it up, and by the time I’d left they had removed the temporary wall and revealed the new second half of the office suite, complete with new entrance. I always use that story as the perfect example of how, from the very beginning of my time there, my career grew just like the office did.
For 12 years that building was “the office” to me. It’s true that from almost the start we were an in-office-as-needed team, but once the in office team became so much of “THE TEAM” – the people I actually love working with and wanted to see – we found ourselves in the office together more often than not. We worked away, talking back and forth over our cube walls and listening to the antics of the other teams around us. We angled for good positions in the pot luck lines, did various silly group theme costumes for Halloweens, left the parking lot in a line of cars headed to the local brewery for Happy Hour together.
There were promotions, and family milestones, and personal goals achieved….. cubes turned to offices and we moved back and forth between each other’s, closing doors to vent, or brag, or take calls together over iced coffees or breakfast burritos from our favorite local spot.
There were Joiners, and there were Leavers – some leaving harder to accept than others – and there were the Stayers, (I stand by the word choice,) sharing extra layers or portable fans depending on what the moody HVAC decided to do that day, and trying to convince each other to either ditch our fridge lunches or eat them, also depending on the day. There were inappropriately named cubicles.
We apologized and ran from calls out the door and across the street where we waited for hours as instructed by Hazmat during the “white powder” incident. We horded the bacon dip during the office wide “dip off” competition (ok this “we” was just me.) We horded the off-brand Excedrin from the first aid kits. We horded the good plates. We put disco balls and mandala tapestries in our offices. We (no wait, this was also me) got carted out by EMTs, sure it was a heart attack (I was sure, not the EMTs,) past our BIG BOSS sitting in a glass walled conference room watching us roll by, Favorite CoWorker holding my hand and on the phone with The Mr. explaining that he wasn’t calling to set up happy hour plans later. (It was a panic attack. Turning 40 will mess with you. If you have been here a while, you know the story.)
The office grew again in physical size – new fancy kitchen and HUGE conference rooms to accommodate the bulging population.
We built stuff. We solved problems (and created some too.) Sometimes Leavers were Rejoiners. Sometimes they were leavers again.
And then one day – March 13, 2020 – we left. And we just…. didn’t come back. Until we did, to find offices frozen in time. Calendars set on March 2020. Snack drawers full of LONG expired food. And emptiness where our whole loud, lively, full existence had once been on full display.
Don’t get me wrong – I love our online team – now fully and completely spread out all over. We were doing online quite well LONG before anyone told us we had to. The team remains THE TEAM.
But being back at the office in their physical absence has been disorienting. My once-weekly time there is so deafeningly quiet.
And so it was today as I packed up my personal items, and labeled the boxes and files that need to move to the new office where I won’t have an official space of my own. The new space is beautiful and I am excited to visit and work in shared spaces often.
But as I walked the full floorplan one last time today – seeing and hearing the ghosts and the echoes of every moment of the 12 years we spent finding out who “we” were as individuals and as a team in these aging spaces?
I carry every moment forward in every action I take in my career – and probably in my “not work” too.
Reluctantly Suburban 