Preparing to The New Building

In the nearly 6,5 years working for this company, I've moved from one building to another perhaps three times, two of which were by the decision of the Management. The first time, we moved from the Z Tower in San Pedro to the Sabana Real building (former Alcatel building) in South Sabana, and then, after I moved to the Central Building in North Sabana (the one move I made when I moved to another Division), we moved - the entire Process -  from North Sabana's Central Building, to the Angels of Sea building in South Sabana. Both of the movings decided by the Management were not received happily by the employees, but we kind of got around and got used to the new building and the new entourage. In each case the general conditions of working were mantained, and the major disruptions - for some -  were in the area of location and the routes they would have to take to get to the office, the time it would take them to get there, and so on. From place to place there were sometimes also issues about the restaurants and the dining areas, or how far was the bus station, or just how insafe the location was.

The moving was usually issued by the Management, a moving day assigned, people packed up there stuff, came the moving day in jeans and snickers, moved to the new place, got adjusted, and that was it. This time, it is different. The Management has issued a new moving, where everybody (or at least everybody from 11 rented buildings) will move to one leased building built by the Banco de Costa Rica in South Sabana, known as CELS (name given by the Bank, which means something like "Executive Center... something"), and also Telecommunications Tower (name given by our bright and creative managers). Since the whole leasing of this building was surrounded by tons and tons of controversy - such as the fact that our managers negotiated UP the price originally requested by the leaser, and that the amount paid for this one building surpasses that paid currently for the 11 buildings to be vacated, just to mention a few - not to mention all the trouble for the employees in 11 different buildings, with different conditions, in dfferent districts. For instance, everybody will have the same type of small, open cubicles, all arranged in such a fashion that privacy is reduced to zero. (I, however, can always find the way to manage some. Like I said to a coworker of mine, when it comes to fix cubicles, I happen to have more positions that the extended edition of the Kama Sutra.) This has upset a lot of people, not only because most of the employees do not-office-related things during office hours (such as messaging, or reading stuff on Internet, looking for images, blogging, checking their personal e-mails, etc.), but also because many of us have sensitive material, handle sensitive documentation and so on, and in a building where messengers, providers and others can walk around, privacy would kind of been appreciated.

It is said that the cubicles can't be personalized. I say, show me the reglamentation where it says so and I will bring it to court. Meanwhile, stick it where the Sun doesn't shine. However a lot of people, specially those with incompetent bosses who, unable to do their real job amuse themselves by harrasing and controlling their subordinates, are mightly upset about that. My coworker was one of those, since he's with my former boss. Smiling, I told him to follow my admirable example and cover every inch of his cubicle with Post-its. These are not "personalizing" of the space, but are work. Ahhh, it feels so good to throw a lifesaver to the drowning man!

So, yesterday we had this pep-talk in the afternoon about the benefits and the amazing experience the new building would be. Experts and the project directors came to talk to us, gave us a lame little snack, and tried, really tried to convince us about the swell experience it would be to be all together in the new building. Didn't work.

First of all, not a word was said about the cubicles, so the topic of personalization vs no-personalization wasn't addressed. Many questions were cowardly dodged by alleging that it would depend on the coordinators of each area, and what the Management would decide. Among the many issues - none of which was solved, BTW - four stood out: the food and eating question, the medical question, the parking question and the safety question.

Food & Eating

It will be forbidden - in the name of creating a better coexistence in each floor, where 110 to 120 people would be working - to eat in the cubicles. Not a cookie, not a cup of coffee (yeah, the end of the world as we know it), but maybe some water. No safety reasons, no reasoned explanations, simply in pro of a better coexistence. 

Question: is it just me or sharing coffee with your coworkers ACTUALLY IMPROVE the coexistence of the team?

Anyway, there's a diner of sorts in the 2nd floor (we will be working in the 15th) with capacity for 220 people. The building will house 1287 workers. So, to accomodate all that people, they will eat in 5 lunch times: 10:45 to 11:30, 11:30 to 12:15, 12:15 to 13:00, 13:00 to 13:45, and 13:45 to 14:30. No, really. The expositors tried to convince us that this works since in the Central Builing, in North Sabana it does. Yeah, only that in the Central Building people CAN eat, and they do it, at their desks, and many choose to take a meeting room and eat there. Besides, the canteen there is slow, so honestly, how do they expect two to four diner workers to attend 220 in less than 45 minutes? Less because they must wait for the elevator, get to the second floor, make the queue, get their food, find a table and a chair, sit, eat, leave, wait for the elevator and go back to their cubicles... all in 45 minutes or less. And here we are talking of someone who doesn't brush teeth after eating, nor has to go to the bathroom for any reason.

When I pointed out this fact (yes, it was me, resistance-militant lil' ol' me), the exposition rushed into talking about the unhealthy nature of eating at the cubicle, how people needed to detach from the work and the office when eating, and parentingly admonished be for doing so. Explaining her that I often do that because this way I can watch a movie while eating, or talk to Kari while I eat was beyond the point, as well as it was beyond the point to ask her how healthy it is to stress about time when eating, making lines, look for a place to seat, or even eating in an environment filled with noise and foul smells form all the food eaten and eaten before, just as the filth left by all the others. Because, I don't know you, but there's nothing as disgusting as having to eat in a filthy, place, with the floor and the tables generously dosed with leftovers (you should see the way some people eat, carpeting the table with half their lunches, and with 1287 people in the building, and 55 tables, such a thing is BOUND to happen), and stinking of 1287 lunches ranging from rice and beans to fish, to garlic, to chicken, to bad cooking and other horrors that mix into a big, fetid pool of stench.

Medical Services

In this building we will have an area of Medical Services, very modern and complete, with one office for a nurse, one office for a doctor, one area for procedures, one area of observation, one area for applying shots, one bathroom and a waiting hall. This all to attend the requirements of 1287 employees. 1287 employees currently in 11 buildings, attended by 5 doctors and 5 nurses... now one doctor, one nurse. But it's okay, because IF they see that the demand of the medical services is too high, they may add another doctor. Again the troublemaker-me, along with others, asked how that would be addressed, since in my experience, currently the doctor I'm assigned to has capacity to attend all the requirements, and yet nothing has been done. At the medical office, the only people that goes on record are the ones that get attended, all the others go missing, nobody records the number of calls and requests turned down because there's no time to attend them, so what would change now? There was no answer to this question, other than "IF they see that de demand is too high, they'll consider putting another doctor". The eloquent expositor also took the opportunity to call upon people to consider whether they must go or not to see the doctor, mentioning the policonsultants (make more than one appointment in a year), and how there's people going up to 50 times a year.

Now, I don't go 50 times a year, since it is a miracle if I manage to get an appointment every two months, and I'm an asthmatic, I need my meds, my check up and now there's an order from the medical direction not to issue meds without a consultation. However, let me clarify the 50/year thing. There are people with blood pressure conditions, diabetics and other conditions that requiere frequent check ups. Let's for the sake of the example, take the blood pressure ones. Problems with the blood pressure are quite frequent, specially in offices, where stress is common. People with low or high blood pressure need to do frequent check ups, hopefully twice a day. Yes, a nurse can do so, BUT upon noting the blood pressure in the employee's health file, the doctor can check out the tendency and decide whether something is happening, or if the person is well. A once a week such check up is reasonable, and even quite unfrequent, considering some cases. Now, a year has 52 weeks, and every year at least 2 weeks are mandatory vacations. Now, would that kindly explain the 50 consultations a year?

Many of us would wish to go only once a year to the doc, or every two years or so, but we can't, and the older we get, the more we must go, so I find it deeply insulting and irresponsible to ask people to be considerated with the medical service. Sorry, but it ain't funny for me to go to the doc, and it's quite a hassle to get an appointment, so I would appreciate an apology for such a comment.

Parking

According to the plans, there will be 687 parking places, which would be used for company cars, providers, clients, special guests, superior management and employees. They estimated that there will be around 400 parking spaces for the employees. So, kind of, roughly, something like 1 parking space for every 4 employees. They calculated that such an amount is ok, considering that the Central Building has 200 parking spaces for employees. Now, lets see the reality. Currently all 11 buildings have parking space and everybody has, pretty much a parking space. There's some shortage already, and people has had to find new places to park their cars, but it is somewhat solved. Now, have they censed the number of cars parked, the parking lot demand and determinated that 400 will be enough? No. How do they know it will be enough? Because it is enough in the Central Building. Yeah, only in the Central Building there are 5 more company parking lots, and still a lot of people park in the streets, and these streets are two long, wide streets with very low traffic, while at the Tower there are no other company parking lots, the street is one, short, narrow, shared with an Office Park complex and four other enterprises, AND it has a major traffic flow, with several bus lines there making stops.

Good thing I don't have a car.

Safety

The building seems to have quite some safety problems. For once, the stairs are way too narrow to properly evacuate the people in case of an emergency. How narrow is too narrow? Well, imagine again this 16 floor building with 110-120 people per floor in an earthquake or a fire case in a stairwell where pretty much only two people fit. Oh, but there are TWO such stairwells! Oh, okay, then I guess there's no problem.

The building has poor ventilation, but it's okay because it uses an state of the art climatization system. Sure it doesn't work in another building, but it will work in this one. Occupational Health said that the building doesn't fulfill the minimal conditions a working place shall have, but it doesn't matter, because the Health Ministerium is checking it out, and that can (and will) overrule whatever the Occupational Health department says. Hell, I wonder why on Earth do we have such a department in the company...

Add to it, certain sources from the building company let us know, horrified, that the building was NEVER meant for the amount of people the company plans to put in there, the building won't hold that weight. I'd say that's kind of worrying, but then again, that's just me, lil' ol' troublemaker-me.

We were told yesterday that the building hasn't been received yet, and it won'tbe until May, BUT if there's any problem with it, regarding health or safety issues, then the building won't be received. However the whole moving thing and cocowashing (brainwashing) is being exercised on the employed population, which makes us think that healthy or not, cheaper or not, convenient or not, we are going to move or be moved to the new building.

Yupi.