Cubicle Expeditions
My office was relocated recently. Previously I sat in a cube tucked away around the corner from most of my colleagues in the depths of the windowless concrete bunker of the first floor of our building. My new location is in a spacious cube with a window. The only downside is I share the cubicle with one of my colleagues, but now I get natural light and full bars on my cell phone - a coupe in my corporate world. However, the third floor is an odd place.
My Office
We moved there, because space was available. Space was available because they had just relocated everyone off the floor so they could begin remodeling it. I have no idea when the remodeling will begin or how distracting that might be when it happens in earnest. But in the meantime, our office is essentially on a deserted floor. Now it may not seem so at first, the cubicle walls are still up, furniture is still in place, name plates remain, and even scrawl covered white boards adorn the abandoned conference rooms. Needless to say, this was far to tempting to resist.
Immediately I was filled with childhood fantasies of fort-building, finding secret hide-aways, and of course, the joyous pleasure of being places I wasn't supposed to be. For my first expedition I convinced one of my more rebellious colleagues to "take a walk." Quickly I showed her the mystery cubicle which had a door into an abandoned conference room. A stack of furniture and overturned desk prevented our full entry, but we found another doorway to a different part of the office - a conference room secret passageway if ever there was one. The cubicles themselves formed quite a labyrinth. often entering one cubicle would revel passageways to others and end in large open group workspaces.
We paused here and there to open some drawers - empty for the most part, but we started accumulating some office supply booty, adding to the illicit fun of this adventure. Ethernet cables, power strips, extension chords, started filling our arms. To be sure this would all be repurposed in our own offices, an efficient savage operation should anyone ask, or security intervene. The coat rack was my main prize and it's trident-like prongs made for a great improvised weapon against any minotaurs who might show up. We discovered unclaimed corner offices, conference rooms with padded benches - an excellent place to take a nap. We even discovered the two other work groups that occupied the floor, though we took caution to pass them unseen.
There were rumors, of course that one of the engineers who once worked on this floor had refused to leave. In fact we stumbled upon one cube filled with a variety of electrical equipment, slices of think cabling, transducers, and the like - a perfect treasure pile for some late night mad scientist. Near this cube was a map room with cabinets empty, save for one drawer with a map of the floor. I should have taken it, my my colleague whispered emphatically that the ghost engineer was here, so we quickly retreated back to the more familiar passages of the cubeway.
I don't know how long we'll have before the plastic sheeting goes up and demolition of the existing floor begins, but I hope to at least get the map and perhaps a few other souvenirs of my urban spelunking.