"Re-Stack"

Like all organizations, my employer has it's own set of buzz words to describe key events and actions. Many of them I've heard before from other employers - but I'm hearing a lot about a new term "re-stack". Don't worry this has nothing to do with "downsizing" or "rightsizing", or even "strategic alignment / positioning"; it's about reorganizing the cubicle farms that we live in to accommodate more people and or shuffling groups to be closer together or further apart.

When the Senior Site manager for KC joined the company (about a year ago), she immediately recognized some very big "opportunities" (a.k.a. screw-ups) with the way our department is organized. For example, when you walk into the office area, you are forced to walk down a narrow cubicle aisle with 6 foot walls. You can't actually enter anyone's area from the "tunnel"; instead you have to walk the entire length of the office and then turn into one of the "ghettos" to your right or left and walk back towards the wall.

I work for the Collections part of the organization, so turn left at the end of the tunnel and look for the desk that is both the closest to and the furthest from the door you entered. I also am lucky enough to have my back to the rest of the ghetto, so even though you will have been in the office for 2 minutes already, I will still be surprised to find you standing behind me.

The restack was requested about a year ago and was supposed to happen over the holiday's last year. I even boxed up a good amount of my stuff so that I could be easily moved if it occurred while I was on vacation. Needless to say, it hasn't happened yet; although today we received word that a special cross functional team would be working on the problem by first designing what the ideal training department should look like. This means that somewhere - someone will be getting lunch catered in while they draw little color coded flip-charts with diagrams about equal distribution of printers and coat racks. Unless there is some serious "rightsizing", I won't need to pack my stuff up for a very long time.

Today I also heard about ways that we will accommodate the large number of employees like myself that work out of this building, but really have nothing to do with the operation here in KC. The pipe dreams included, "everyone will have super secure laptops and wireless headsets in a paperless environment so we can share our desks and work from home when needed". Since I spend 90% of my time each day staring at a monitor (the size of the one I have on my laptop at home) and talking on the same kind of Plantronics headset that I used when I was a telemarketer in college - that would be an improvement.

.... of course they won't want to retrofit the new equipment into anything other than the new set up. so they'll likely have to wait until after the "restack".

.... And his hunger burns
So he starts to roam the streets at night
And he learns how to steal
And he learns how to fight
In the ghetto

Then one night in desperation
A young man breaks away
He buys a gun, steals a car,
Tries to run, but he don’t get far
And his mama cries

As a crowd gathers ’round an angry young man
Face down on the street with a gun in his hand
In the ghetto

.... As her young man dies,
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’,
Another little baby child is born
In the ghetto