Hell Week

In college, it was when a candidate for a fraternity had to juggle his course work with a 24/7 initiation process -- one of several reasons why, in this writer's opinion, the "Greek life" is a waste of time, if only how it has devolved in recent years.

Closer to the present, and to the day job, the headquarters building near the White House is undergoing extensive renovation, half of it at a time. Most of the communications office moved to the "swing space" in a new office building north of the Capitol. Since they didn't know how to cope with our equipment needs, the graphic design unit stayed at the old building. But with the discovery of excess space, and just to let us know they didn't forget about us, they made room for us, so we're moving to join the rest of the communications office, by the end of the week. Five of my colleagues in the unit are moving to one place. I am moving to another, several cubicle rows away, with the video people. So goes the motions to convert my career track to something that won't leave me hanging around counting the days till retirement -- by the end of 2020, at the earliest.

(It's one way to get around a midlife crisis.)

Nobody likes it, but I don't see a way around it. We'll have half the space we had before, and it's hard to convince people who have all the answers, that several questions regarding common use equipment have barely been addressed.

As with all administrations, this too shall pass. How to break the news to them ...?