Change, The Only Constant

The only constant in life is change. Big changes are happening in my work life right now. I've worked for this company and in this department for almost 10 years. I started as a temporary administrative assistant. After almost 3 years, I promoted to a Specialist position- still a support role. There was major turnover happening in the Management position that I did a lot of support work for. After the 3rd vacancy in just a couple of years, my boss took a chance and created an almost-management position for me to train me into that job. After proving my worth at the job, I was finally promoted to Manager a few years back. I started with my company 10 years ago in an open cubicle. When I received my promotion, I moved into an office. This office has been my home for 7 of my 10 years here. This is the hallway outside my office- the first doorway on the left (the one you can't really see) leads to the manufacturing floor and warehouse and eventually to another hallway that leads to the "corporate" end of the building.

Our copy room. Mailboxes, copier, printer, scanner. Supplies, paper, envelopes. A place where you bump into your co-workers and office mates each morning and stop to chat or exchange pleasantries.

Even the bathroom has been the same all these years. One for the men, one for the women, single user bathrooms.

And now, things are changing drastically.

That corporate end of the building started changing when my company was purchased by 3M. All those VP's and higher ups on Corporate Row moved on to "greener" pastures. New faces, shuffled people. We were always somewhat protected from all that went on at that end because we had manufacturing between us and them.

And now we are becoming them.

Some people have been moved to a different building. Some are moving into smaller work spaces. Some are moving into shared workspaces. I am very fortunate to be moving into an office that is about the same size as my current space. I will be directly across from the office that made up Corporate Row. I will be much closer to my boss and her boss than I currently am. But I will still have an office, a door, a lock. Most importantly, I still have a job.

We are in the process of shutting down one of our facilities in Massachusetts. I don't know a lot of the details on that process. But I do know that they are moving one of the production lines to Indianapolis. This end of the building will be gutted this Friday and our office area will be converted to a production area. It means job growth for us- we will be hiring 40-50 new employees.

I'll share my new office space once everything is done. But the past few weeks and all of this week and the weeks ahead are all about going with the flow, moving fluidly with change.