We moved some desks today.

Dear Diary,
It started when I saw David’s email the other day announcing that some staff were being shifted out of the small office and re-positioned in the main sales office. I thought, hello, moves afoot, I wonder how long it’ll be before my name is mentioned!!

Now I’m not sure of his name, it could be Kevin, I think he’s something to do with marketing in there, but he came to see me yesterday. He wasn’t sure if I was the right person to be talking to so I reassured him that I wouldn’t be offended if I couldn’t be of any help what so ever and asked him to just say what he wanted. He’s a tall guy, but I didn’t feel intimidated as he stood towering over me as I sat there at my desk. I could have stood up to be more inline with his eye line, but then what would that have achieved; so I just sat there.

David’s email”, had began with, “four of us are moving into the main office” Well of course I knew what Kevin wanted, I was five steps in front of him. “Stop there” I said, you’re looking at desks aren’t you?. “Yes” came the surprised reply. He went on to say that he was wondering if we had any spare desks just incase David didn’t want to let any be taken out of the room. I told him my advice was to take the desks out. We needed less people in there and if we took the desks out then there was less of likelihood of people sitting down and creating the body heat that the air conditioning can’t cope with – I’ll leave that topic for another day as it’s been going on for months. Anyway, I told him we had a spare one in our office if he needed it and I could always move some others about if he needed to match anything – you know like they do with that feng shui – don’t go there.

So today, he’s back. David’s agreed to the desk being moved out, but he’d like a matching one – a little “I thought so ” came into my mind. “No problem”, I said, we’ll sort it out for you. I like to think we can do things in the back ground with out any fuss for them; I call it internal customer relations. I’ve not done a feedback sheet yet on internal customer relations but having said that I might start to construct one and include in the monthly customer care statistics. Now how would we measure internal customer satisfaction ? I digress.

Well, with my back, I knew my days of moving furniture on my own were over, so I asked the IT gentlemen if they were up for a bit of furniture moving. Of course they were, although not available straight away, and I quite understand this, we had to make an appointment for 3.00.

2.55 came round and I Iooked at the desk opposite me that was being re-positioned in sales to match the other one that Kevin had put there. Now I think of it, I can see where this feng shui comes in, it’s like ying and yang, little and large, up and down! I could go on, but there I was staring at this simple desk. I thought I can move that on my own and be getting on with the job. Naturally, being aware of the office politics, I had previously made an announcement of my intentions to move the desk around, so no one bothered when I tipped it over on it’s side and slid it out of the office and towards the lift.

So I pressed the button for the lift and with only a few slight bangings and scratches, managed to get it in there. Laura and, I forget her name, ( I’m no good with names), passed me on the stairs as I was struggling to get it out on to the landing. “Oh don’t bump into us” one of them laughed. I thought I’d have job with something this size, I’m not exactly travelling at 30mph!

I got it into sales and then you’d have thought I was announcing some important event – the whole room went silent. Suffice to say I just carried on, on my own, no one came to ask if I needed any help, but then again everyone is so busy in sales it was understandable.

Dusting myself down as I went back down stairs, there were the lads bang on 3.00 waiting to help. We stripped the machinery and electrical contraptions off the desk at the door and got it to the side of James the accounts manager – he just watched even though we had to move the dozen boxes of accounting filing that were in the way. Nevertheless, he’s another internal customer as it was originally his staff’s desk that we were moving so I wanted positive feedback.

We did put a smaller table in it’s place and replaced the wiring and machinery in next to no time after this, so all in all it does look neater in that area. I’m glad now that Kevin, I think that’s his name, came to me for assistance because not only have we got rid of un matching tables in front of me, we’ve got a smaller more shall I say efficient area for the printer / fax and auto entry system and – this is a bonus – I threw out that chair that kept tipping people on their side when they sat on it.

So all in all a good a days work. I’ll sleep tonight and the energies in that room will be more balanced and ready for the week ahead. I just hope Kevin doesn’t move that desk I put upstairs as I didn’t tell him the legs were not fixed to the table.

Let’s hope the weekend is good.