Life in Boxes

10 January 2013

I just deleted everything I tapped in on my phone on the way to the airport.  I was blogging about work in a way that I shouldn't.

We're moving from a 1960s-era function-over-form, cinder block and submarine green-trimmed, exposed wire, dusty, cluttered, viewless box.  We're moving to a brand new, form-over-function, everywhere glass, open, airy, new-building-smelling work of Madrid-born architecture. 800 of us, one lab at a time over the course of several months.  We're in the front end of the second wave, the first on our floor in the neuroscience side of the building.

The sordid details I can relate in person.  For now, here are pictures of our new lab before, during, and after our move three days ago.

Sunday, 12/29/13, marking benches to be raised in order to fit equipment underneath (we weren't the only ones):

This will be my office.  I might have an office mate by the time I land in NJ again.

Corner alcove, barista needed:

View from the hallway into our lab:

View from the stairwell on our level to the main entrance above:

Student study area:

View from the front entrance:

View of the new building from the walkway of the genomics building:

Monday, 12/30/13, back again to check up on something else, a view down another stairwell:

and up:

Tuesday, 12/31/13, my boss starts to clear out his office; the move is 7 days away:

Much of the main lab is packed; this is the office where I'm putting the boxes:

New Year's Day, because there's a snowstorm in the forecast for 1/2/14, I pack 2 boxes of personal stuff while AG feels the panic and is packing too:

AG's microscope room is ready to go:

Thursday, 1/2/14, the movers deliver crates; we end up needing more:

I clear out the meeting room and former students' desks; the owner of these bottles graduated and left in 2012:

Every day I find another box of crap.  A year's worth of a weekly journal, many unopened, and with a Palm Pilot.  A bag containing toothpaste, deodorant, and several neckties under a pair of well-worn sandals.  A case of gauze.  Six hard drives, one labeled "from under my desk." Power cords, Ethernet cables, telephone cables, wire.

In the evening the snowstorm begins.

Friday, 1/3/14, the university is closed, but our lab has a full house anyway with 8 inches on the ground.  We pack the biggest microscope room.  It is slow and endless and frustrating because those in charge waited too long to start.  I call it the scary room, the disaster area. The staging area fills up:

The scary room 4 days before the move:

Sunday, 1/5/14, progress of sorts:

AB working feverishly with two days to go:

AG has cleared his downstairs rig:

My primary workspace is empty:

Monday, 1/6/14 we start to move in early, with the movers helping:

AG and I discuss placement:

Tuesday, move day, 1/7/14, 6:49 a.m.:

First things first:

I chose the desk on the sunny side.  The window faces west.

The old lab is emptying out:

My old desk:

The old building is ugly.

Riggers set up to move AG's 10x5 foot table:

Movers empty our staging area:

All day long, we pull on the entry door, because we're PhDs.  I put up a sign.  We still pull.

Painter:  Which room are you moving into first so we can be out of your way?

Me:  All of them.

View from my office:

Loading in the chemicals, the chemical movers ask if I want to organize the chemicals by hazard class.  Um, no.

The riggers perform their second cock-up of the day when they can't fit the hoist through the doorway.  They did this earlier today with another lab's rig when they reached the elevator:

AB, demon-possessed by fever and DayQuil, finally gives into her infection and goes home.

AK:  OK, we have surgery!

My area, for molecular biology work and solution prep, is a mess.  A plurality of the boxes are winding up here:

The riggers perform their third cock-up of the day, breaking the vibration sensors on AG's air table's pedestals:

I start to unpack,

which makes things look worse:

Flattened boxes mark our progress:

Wednesday, 1/8/14, in AB's absence we clear her table.  Going around the riggers, the movers have offered to move our two remaining air tables. We and the move coordinators take them up without a second thought.  Three of us get the table cleared in an hour:

Something like 2 hours later, AB's table is in:

I continue setting up, creating a wall of science by the window:

Thursday, 1/9/14, unpacking continues.  In the hallway a handful of grad students hang out by an office.  I can see them but I can't hear them.  On a paper towel I scrawl, "Get to work, slackers!" and hold it against the window.  Giggles ensue.

AG's wrenches, fit for a giant:

This is a stairwell with a light tunnel next to our lab, across from my office:

A contractor hangs shelf for AB's rig:

6:02 p.m.: We are go.

Door decoration begins.  Glass + dry erase markers = shenanigans:

LL:  Your fly needs eyes.

AH: I think they are so much cuter without their heads.

LL:  Gimme a marker?

All I've done is mark our office doors with black capital letters.  As I walk around taking pictures in the evening on

my way out, I decide I should do more. I go back into the lab, grab a marker, and head for my door:

Friday, 1/10/14:  In a little over three years, I have accumulated a lot of toys.  This is the first time I've had a space of my own that wasn't in the thick of things or in a room with half a dozen other people.  I might be sharing with another lab manager, depending on what her boss decided; she's already set up in an office around the corner.  She likes my view better.  If she stays put, I'll be sharing space with a rotating cast of undergrads, which is almost like having a room to myself.  Either way, I'm happy.  I have the desk with the sun.  

Zoom in to get a good look at all of my toys:

There will be growing pains with this building.  We still have a long way to go before everything is in place and hooked up.