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Today was the final day of working in the Oak Harbor office, and I was in a somewhat melancholy mood as I, um, packed my shit.
I started on Tuesday, packing non-essentials and books during lunches and breaks, and today I powered down my workstation and spent the last two and a half hours of my final day in the Oak Harbor office bundling cables and packing the remainder of my office. Beginning Monday, my days become ungodly long — 13 to 14 hours long — and I don’t like it one fucking bit. About four of us will be making the commute from Oak Harbor to Frasier‘s home town. The rest will be moving this weekend, or have moved already.
The company bought us one last six-pizza, six-liters-of-pop lunch as a celebration of an era coming to a close. The office used to be a sporting goods store, and a realtor‘s office before becoming the office of an ISP in 1998. I guess I was a little more reminiscent than most. I had been working in that log building for twelve years. Fuck, it sure doesn’t feel that long.
In 1994, I was working as a desktop publisher at a printing company in suite A-103 at Trader’s Village. I worked on Macintosh computers on the main floor, and the printing presses were in the finished basement. When I left the printing company in 1996, I started working for Galaxynet. It was only two months before they relocated the business… yes, into suite B-102 in the Trader’s Village. Galaxynet was reluctantly sold in 2001 to a milquetoast and a ball-stomping shrew (in my opinion), but I continued to work there because I really do like the job. When we expanded the business into an Internet Cafe, we relocated into a bigger space; suite B-107. In 2004, Galaxynet was sold (did I do that?) to the company I work for now, which began my work in the last suite I’ll work in, A-101. Just so I don’t forget, I took several pictures of our office. Yeah, I’m sentimental. What of it?
There’s something to be said about working in the same building for so long. You learn that it takes you seven to ten minutes to get to work, depending on how you hit the traffic lights. It’s easy to budget gasoline. You can get home on autopilot, almost without thinking about the drive. And, everyone in town knows where the log building on Midway Boulevard is in Oak Harbor. I will miss the familiarity of the building and the short drive to work.
So long, old friend. You’ve been a great, unique building to work in.
