Movin' On Up

Brought to you by springtime winds of change.

Monday seems like a good time to make an announcement, so here it is: I've found a new job. After eight years at Media HQ, I'll be moving to a similar position with a different organization, housed in a de-lux office building in the sky. It's a career opportunity I can't pass up -- which means, apparently, that I've been doing this long enough to have a career rather than just a job. Hmm! Unfortunately, my new employer shares a building with a major bookstore, so I'm going to have to work very hard not to spend my entire paycheck before even stepping outside.

This will be a big change in many ways. MHQ and I have seen each other through a lot in the last eight years. While I've been here, the company has nearly doubled in size and been sold and bought and resold a couple times. While I've experienced significant changes in my personal life, too, thankfully I have not doubled in size.

What I'll miss:

• The people. I've made many exceptional friends while working at MHQ, and I'll be very sorry to part from them. The Soup Group especially has been a mainstay of sanity. Soup Group goes out to lunch together on Thursdays to compare notes, vent frustrations, and talk about our cats. I think I'm going to insist that we still meet for happy hour or dinner or something once a month. These people are too important to let go.
  
• The view. MHQ is situated on the edge of a marsh in the suburbs of the metro area; in fact, the main windows of the atrium and many offices look out onto a wildlife preserve. It's not uncommon for work to stop for a few minutes while we gather to gaze out at birds, deer, foxes, and other creatures you really wouldn't expect to see this close to a major city, not to mention the greenery. I'm sure I'll be able to see plenty from the skyscraper, but it won't be what I'm used to.
  
• The amusement park. Every summer, MHQ sponsors an appreciation event that consists of providing employees and their families with tickets to the local amusement park for a day. You, and your kids if you bring any, can splash around the water park, chat at the ice cream social, or spend the whole day screaming up and down all the roller coasters, as I do. I wonder if they do anything like this at the new place.
  

What I won't miss:

• The computer. My computer usually functions pretty well, but it has a bad habit of stopping dead in its tracks several times a day and chewing its cud for up to a full minute at a time. Makes a terrible grinding noise and won't do diddly until it's finished. The IS department tells me it's searching the A: drive for viruses -- even though I haven't used the A: drive since I got the machine. And since it's been so long since any of them had to deal with an A: floppy disk drive (as opposed to a CD-ROM drive), no one knows how to fix the problem. So they've told me to just deal with it. It's a harmless but annoying interruption of my work I'll be glad to put behind me.
  
• The commute. Though I live barely a dozen miles from MHQ, getting to work and back on a certain stretch of freeway is a notorious pain in the bum. Both home and office are in the 'burbs, and the buses just don't serve this area well, so I have to drive. Plus, several nights a week I go from the office to the T'ai Chi studio rather than straight home, and bus service between those locations isn't doable, either.
  
  The new gig, however, is downtown, and that's a whole new ballgame. Traffic downtown is horrible and parking is worse, so driving there is the last thing I want to do. Fortunately, however, the train runs from very near Sensational Acres to very near the new office, so I'll finally get to use it. On days class ends late, I might end up parking at the studio and taking the bus to the office and back to the studio, then driving home from there. But that will still put far less wear and tear on both my Subarushi and my sanity than the alternative.
  
• The taxidermy. Yes, you read that correctly. Taxidermy. As in, dead animals, stuffed and mounted. MHQ was founded by an avid outdoorsman who hired other avid outdoorsmen, and they decorated the building with numerous hunting and fishing trophies. Birds, fish, mammals, you name it. A VP once lost a bearskin rug, made from a bear he'd slain himself, to theft over the weekend, a mystery that remains unsolved.
  
  Interoffice directions used to include phrases like, "He sits in the goat room" (an area presided over by a stuffed mountain goat); "The donuts are under the moose" (Thursday is treat day, and one department's pastries always sat on a file cabinet directly beneath a moose head); "Turn left at the bass" (because if you turned at the trout you'd go down the wrong hall); and "Meet me at the ox."
  
  The ox is the only trophy I'm going to miss in any way. The stuffed musk ox, dubbed Neville Oxbottom, graces the lobby of MHQ and is among the first things a visitor (or unwary job applicant) sees upon entering. Because it's near the front door, it's a common meeting place for groups heading out to lunch. Neville is a brooding, shaggy beast who has been sent out for cootie extermination more than once. He sometimes gets dressed up for holidays when no one is looking; I've seen him sporting buck teeth and bunny ears around Easter and a pointy hat around Halloween. I've grown sentimentally fond of the old brute over the years. Chances are the bookstore building has no Neville.
  
  And yes, we're sure Neville is a boy. Somebody checked. It was not me.

  
  

I've got two weeks left at MHQ. The countdown has begun.

Today around the world: March 14 is Canberra Day in Australia, Constitution Day in Andorra, White Day in Japan, New Year for Sikhs, and Pi Day in America -- because the date is 3.14, get it? Mmm, pi.