August 12, 2008

New beginnings

I've been thinking the whole day of an appropriate image to begin my new century of photos, and I decided on a third—and the last—photo of the building we're renovating for our office to move into. You see, our office of 20–25 people have not been together in one room or even one building for four years. We're also divided into six groups, each of which has very specific tasks. Though it's good to have specializations, these groupings and this physical separation also has very undesirable effects. The worst for me is that very few people see the overall goals of the office, so they just do the same things they've been doing in the past without questioning whether these are even still relevant. Then the pettiest of all, yet the most detrimental to morale: because some people don't really know or understand what the others are doing and what their responsibilities are, they feel that they're doing more than their fair share of the work. Will being in one small building help people see their work and that of others in the proper perspective? Will it help build and re-build good relationships? I don't really know, but I can always hope. Anyway, the new room divisions are done, and the painting, tiles and blinds. The airconditioning and the structured cabling for telephone and internet lines will be done by the end of the week. Nine of us have been in the new building for more than a month. Next week, the rest of the office will move. Wish us good luck please. (And if you want to see the progress of this room's renovation, click on the label work.)

Alingal Hall construction, part 3

6 comments:

Laurie Allee said...

There has been a big push in the US for open seating in big corporate offices. My husband's software firm recently moved to a new space with this set up. It is supposed to facilitate a sense of company unity by literally tearing down the office walls and forcing everyeone to work in the same big space. The problem is, everyone gets a cubicle with no privacy so they start putting up whatever partitions they can get away with to try and imitate the walls of a real office. To me, the new big room filled with cubes looks like a kind of office bee hive. I understand the philosophy, though.

Interesting post! Thanks for sharing. (And good luck with your new office!)

Eki said...

the tilted angle makes the space geometry even more striking!

Rob said...

Good luck! It will be more crowded than you have been used to. Together at last!

Jules said...

Wow - a clean slate!! Hope everyone gets on together after being separated!!!

Every good wish for the next 100 my friend!!!!

Layrayski said...

A clean start to commemorate your post 100th post. Hehe exciting!

Olivier said...

une bonne idée pour commencer ta nouvelle série sur ton DP.

a good idea to start your new series on your DP.