Ghost In The (Office) Machine

Yesterday I had to go back to the office.

I had left my 24 ounce house metal blue thermal mug (the one that one of my groups had specifically held back for me from our "extra" safety supplies that they gave us with our orders because I drink vast quantities of water and coffee equally) when I went in earlier this month and, realizing that it was likely I would not be going back there again for some time, went ahead and grabbed it.  True to form and our social distancing requirements, I went on a Saturday as my intention was to just pop in and out.

Our office space - the original one we moved into in 2016 - is going through the last round of construction and remodeling, making space for precisely twice the number of people who currently work there.  As a result, the last week has been one of relocating people and office belongings as they have shrunk on-site staff again to accommodate all that we must do for The Plague.

I popped into the document room and got my mug using the Master Key which I got three and a half years ago when we moved into the facility (and likely no-one recalls I have, now).  I almost turned to leave but then, on a whim, started walking through the building.

The building itself is now packed, a combination of space crammed into hallways where there is no room and empty offices and rooms where items have been relocated prior to remodel.  As I walked through these rooms, I was overcome by a wave of nostalgia.

Empty offices with furniture that had existed from the previous inhabitant, that we had used or had painfully relocated (it was rather fragile) to expand our space now waiting for their trip to the dumpster.  The main conference room - soon to become the lunch room - is now filled with the flotsam and jetsam of those offices. Chairs, tables, desks, shelves, all waiting to be categorized and (mostly) abandoned.

I strolled by my former offices (four in this building alone), the current occupants now inhabiting them that cannot remember back a year, company time, because their corporate memory does not extend that far back.  The empty halls and offices rang to me with the voices of those not just that I saw even two weeks ago, but those that have gone, sometimes willingly and sometimes not.  Memories of laughter and chastening and fun conversations and hard conversations echoed through the back of my mind as I sat in a office chair in the main conference room, looking at the items that for the most part I predate and will postdate after they are gone.

The thought was intensified by the fact that it is likely that this might very well be the last time I came into the building.

Yes, I know - last time, you say?  Are you not being a little melodramatic, TB?  After all, you are not leaving the company.

It is true, of course - I am not leaving the company.  But looking at the tables and chairs that filled up the room, I realized it is the end of an era.

If you remember, I had moved out of this building in February over to our new space (window office, very fancy) because we were running out of space in this building.  I still had my reports over there, but I was now separated and only came over periodically.  This intensified, of course, with the arrival of The Plague:  in almost 9 weeks, I had been in three days to either facility.  Suddenly, there was no reason or call for me to see these people and be in this building.

And now, with the imminent arrival of my replacement, there will be no reason for me to return.  These will no longer be my people; this will no longer be my function.  I am being quietly moved out of the warp and weave of the building and its departments and business.  And with the final conversion of the site, there will no longer be any cause for me to be there (as with any manufacturing facility, only those that are needed will be allowed).

The sense of an end of a phase hit me strongly.

I will move my office again if and when we ever go back, moving (most likely) from that window office with the view of the tops of oak trees to a cubicle with carpeted walls.  I will exchange 90% of my interactions with a much smaller group of people I may or may not know. Over time, the grass of corporate memory will grow and I will be a faded thought, embedded in certain signatures and the memories of those that remain and the occasional "We do it that way because...".  The company and department will likely thrive; I will quietly fade into the background, a historical marker and a recognition at some point of time served.

I sighed, looking one more time at everything piled akimbo in the room.  Detritus to be categorized and removed or repurposed, much like me.  Then I got up, got not one but two sparkling waters out of the refrigerator (I am, I think, owed that much), and made my way out the back exit.

The door - the one we almost never use - scraped a bit as it cut back across the concrete but did not slam with the normal sound.  I tried not to but looked back anyway to see that it had closed, seeing only a blank sheet of plate glass reflecting back at me without sympathy.

The wind in the oaks suggested to me that I was really just drawing this out and it was time to move on.  And the oaks, having seen more than one person and one company leave out those same doors, most likely know what they are talking about.