Sometimes, cosmic forces without our knowing come into play. Since mid-June I have been part of an ‘office closure team’. Our company is moving to North Carolina and the legal team to Salt Lake City. The company (Japanese owned from Tokyo) decided that it made more economical sense to relocate to be near our competitors (also in NC). That labor is cheaper there had nothing to do with it (can we all say ‘sure’?). Out of the 89 SF employees, only 11 were even offered a chance to go to NC. Yes...you may have guessed all management, but more on that later. Ultimately only 8 accepted positions....lets see, travel to NC for less money......hmmmmmm just let me jump at THAT offer.

The Shut Down Team adopted the name Project Vortex. Sort of a swirling together of everything faster and faster down to nothing. Talk about a Dorothy-Wizard of Oz-esque tornado vision! I try not to giggle but already the absurdity has taken hold of my sense of humor. Every project the company ever engaged in was given a code name. The move to NC was Project Moon and after the employees were informed - Project Tranquillity. We’ve also had Projects with the code names of Margarita, Apple, Mars, IceQueen, to name a few.

The members of Project Vortex other than myself were - Ellen (the Chief Corporate legal counsel who wasn’t moving), Bridget (the move consultant who was hired after management realized that we couldn’t do our jobs and this too), Sal (associate legal counsel - Hispanic and VERY macho with delusions of importance), Vlada (the mad Yugoslavian receptionist), Jim (the overweight part time counsel member who turned out to be a wizz at record retention) and Beverly (the short heavy set black woman with attitude a mile thick which hid a heart of gold but who took no shit off of anyone) who blundgeoned the offsite storage people and the library of documents.

Why was I selected to be part of this mad scheme you may ask? Because I had the luck to be the executive assistant to the CFO who just happened to be a major team member on the NC Office Team (and who was going), but also the assistant to the head of IT (who was also on the NC OfficeTeam). I was the 2nd senior executive assistant in the office, second only to the President’s executive assistant (who oddly enough WAS going to NC and who was the ‘go to person’ (gods how I HATE that expression) on the NC side and who moved out there in January so she could facilitate the move. Add to that my prior office manager experience and that I am an organizer and not a shrinking violet and it was a foregone conclusion that I would be ‘volunteered’. And no...I was never asked, only informed I was on the team. Tasks were assigned to each of us and we met every Wed. As the time got closer for the relocation of the office (the date changed several times so it was difficult to schedule movers, removal of equipment, etc.) it was apparent that 2 of our team members had no intention of doing their assigned tasks - which I might add were precious little. Sal who was supposed to review the contracts including the building and equipment/telephone/copier leases and handle the forwarding of the mail, and Vlada who was to have scheduled the removal of equipment including coffee, water and copiers and to be our liaison between the company and building management.

So here we are at the seventh hour - 2 weeks before the scheduled move - only to learn that not only is the freight elevator not available on the day of our Salt Lake City move (2/25) because it will be serviced, but that no request was ever made for us to reserve it...thank you Vlada. Now we scramble to change the move date with the movers .... moving it up to 2/20 - leaving us one day to finish packing and staging furniture after the NC movers leave. Later we also learn that no coffee or water vendors have a clue we are moving so there is the last minute scramble to get them to come pick up their equipment - and that each of the 2 coffee machines and water machines are leased to us by different vendors (4 machines and 4 vendors) - at this point its just another wrinkle in the absurdity of the whole affair - falling under the heading of the things you can’t plan for. Like finding that we have a basement storage room full of things we didn’t know about. Jim takes care of hauling the trash out - what a guy and it takes him a full day.

Just when we think it can’t get worse it does. Sal has not reviewed one lease. The NC group has made contractual agreements with another copier company. Our existing leases are non-cancelable until 2007. It will cost the company approx. $19,000 to get out of this. And then there is the contract for service on the telephone equipment that is being scrapped which doesn’t expire until 2009. All of these could have been morphed into other agreements for Salt Lake City or NC - had we only known. The copiers aren’t picked up until the very end - 3 days before we have to have everything off of the floors (2/28) and only after numerous telephone calls and threatening to leave them on the loading dock on 2/28..

I pack my bosses’ desks and files (they are all in NC) - 4 out of the 5 are men so of course they aren’t around. I shut down the 2 corporate apartments - including washing out the refridgerators.....only Donna does her own....packing her things herself - bless that woman! Since 2/17 I have tossed more garbage, emptied drawers, dealt with vendors including mailing out new address and payment notices to 4000 vendors and clients. But looking back now that it is over - it is the last several days of Project Vortex which stand out as cosmic reminders of this experience.

First there is the mail machine which was scheduled to go to Salt Lake City. Packed in pieces by the mover in 2 boxes and labeled as ‘calculators’ with a blue tag instead of purple, it ends up on the truck for NC. All of it that is except the power cord....which she ‘forgot’ to pack. Also the 2 covers to the drawers of the file cabinets which were removed when the movers unscrewed the cabinets don’t manage to make it onto the truck.

Then there is the lovely Oakie movingman (and no - he was the one who took great pains to let us know that he was one) who thot that Bridget was ‘cute’ and was so busy trying to impress her on how he could move a 4 drawer lateral firesafe filecabinet weighing over 1000 lb. by himself from one truck to another on a ramp, that he lost control, the file fell almost crushing Bridget and smashed into the concrete flooring. The furniture liquidator that had contracted for 4 cabinets decided that he wouldn’t honor only 3 and so the middleman ended up with 3 cabinets plus 2 safes that are now un-contracted for - essentially being out of pocket in the deal.

Then there is the story of Cankles. This is the 2nd to last day before we have to be out. We (Bridget and I and Ellen) have now been there more hours than we can count and we are tired and punchy. Gallows humor has long ago set in. Cankles is not surprisingly, the black ‘son’ of the Oakie who tried to impress Bridget with his manliness and moving expertise. He is probably about 19, black and 300 lbs. He’s got on ghetto pants and spends more time clutching them to make sure that they stay up than he does working. These pants reach to his knees and the name ‘Cankles’ has apparently been given to him by his fellow employees because his ‘calves’ go straight into his ‘ankles’. The kid has ankles which are larger around than my thigh. The kid is a kid....he acts like he’s never moved anyone before - heading into our kitchen and helping himself without asking to our popcorn and other food, banging his fist on file cabinets, opening doors and wandering around. Ultimately he is corralled and paired with an older experienced mover who keeps an eye on Cankles. Now, for the funny part. There is a wind storm with winds of 50+ miles an hour. We are in a highrise building in San Francisco - the 16th and 17th floors. On the 21st floor one of the other tenants are hosting a large party so the caterers are using the freight elevator too. Cankles is in the freight elevator when one of the caterers call it to the 21st floor. At the precise moment that it reaches that floor a gust of wind hits the building so strong as to cause the elevator to bang against the walls of the shaft - dislodging the sensors and causing the elevator to freeze solid. Bridget gets a call from the security guard downstairs who is trying his best not to laugh. Cankles is holding one arm outstretched against the elevator walls and is alternating holding his pants up with pushing all the elevator buttons as fast as he can. The sight of this on the monitor is too much for the security guard and he can’t keep from laughing. In fact it is so entertaining that he’s called to let us know that we should come down to view it along with his fellow security group and the electrician who is there to reset the elevator sensors. Ultimately Cankles is released and decides that the field of office relocation is not for him. We are in hysterics and not unmindful that Project Vortex is ending with a wind storm....but the parallels aren’t over yet.

The wind storm has also caused trouble for one of the charities who has come to pick up furniture. They are trapped in traffic and 3 hours later arrive - and to our horror we realize that they only speak Chinese. Something which none of us speak....add to that that we’ve just finished Chinese takeout food and we are again reduced to giggles. Doesn’t help that the woman who heads the charity has for the last several hours been out in a bar drinking Chardonay either......