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It's official - cardboard boxes hate me. In particular, cardboard boxes that are flatpacked and have to be wrestled with to reconstitute them into boxes. They fight back, dammit! That I only got one paper cut is probably a miracle of biblical proportions.
Today was archiving day at work. We'll bypass my rant about the fact it's only come down to me because a) I made the mistake of running out of work one day last month and b) Sicknote has been avoiding doing the job for about six months because she hates work, because it'll take a long time to type out and I wanna go to bed. Plus I start to develop a tic above my right eye *twitches*.
So yes, archiving. Because of long neglect, this relatively simple task had now reached a job of mammoth proportions. For months, any spare space in the office has been filled with brown archival boxes full of papers and records. Because they are financial, we are legally obliged to hang onto them for seven years. *sighs* You may recall I ranted about moving 57 boxes out of the loft a while back? That was Stage 1 of the process, which freed up space in the loft to put all the crap that was in the office.
Stage 2 was checking the contents of the boxes in the office, assigning a box number, assigning a label and recording the details. The boxes were then stacked into a very large metal trolley, taller and wider than me by some margin, which then had to be manhandled down a corridor, into a rickety old lift, up to the loft, down another corridor, to the attic room assigned to us. Then the boxes had to be unloaded and stacked inside the room. This is fiddlier than it sounds, because our room is a separate room off a much longer storage room. The door to the main room opens inwards and neatly blocks off the door to our area. *sigh* So you either have to bring the boxes in one at a time, kicking the blasted door out of the way each time and wrestling the box around it, or when there's two of you (Sicknote did sort of help a bit), one slides the boxes past the door and the other person retrieves them and hauls them into the room. Rinse, lather repeat, 18 boxes at a time. I did this trip twice today, and I'll have to do it at least twice more tomorrow.
Stage 3 was the really fun bit. Not. Basically, I sit facing a wall, and along two thirds of the wall's length are four very sturdy shelves. The lowest shelf is just above my head when I'm sitting at my desk. The highest shelf can only be reached by LongLanky, the Finance Manager, who's approximately 6' 2" tall :P One half of the shelves house PartyGirl's Nursery Grant folders, the other half houses all the Year End and Quarterly Returns that I process. However, the actual shelf space for those ran out before Christmas so subsequent files have ended up being filed on my desk and down along the work surface to my right, which was traditionally used for fax/photocopier/emergency work surface stuff. It's been a right royal pain in the arse, frankly. So I can't grumble about doing the archiving for that bit of it, it's "my" folders, fair do's. But oh what a horrible job it was! First of all, there was the torment of wrestling the flatpacks back into box shape. Hah! Then there was the issue of getting the folders from the highest shelf down. Not hugely difficult, I just knelt on my desk and reached up. The problem was when I attempted to get down in haste to answer the phone. I overbalanced slightly, slithered off, scraping my left shin wonderfully, desperately tried to get the left leg onto the ground to get balanced, missed the ground, found the bin, which being big and square, was big enough to tilt up sharply, ramming it's hard, metal edge into the bit of shin I'd just scraped. By this time, my right leg had remembered it had a purpose in life and helped me to regain my balance.
There was muttering as the bin gotkicked off my foot and moved out of range. I assured those who were looking at me in concern that I was fine - bless them, they didn't point and laugh, at least not publicly - and clambered back up again. LongLanky did come over, concerned, and made sure I was OK and offered to put any files back up there that needed moving. I'll take him up on that offer tomorrow *rubs very battered shin*
After that, it was just a case of taking all the returns out of the files, stacking the paper into the boxes (3 files worth of returns to a box) and doing the numbering/labelling/lugging of box into hall to stack on metal trolley. I finished the bulk of it before I came home, and there's less to do than is already done. And I'll have shelf space again briefly. Hurrah!
On the plus side, I earned some karma today. PartyGirl has been suffering sinus trouble for a long time and today she found out that a chemist in WGC had a supply in of the nasal spray she used to use but hasn't been able to get for nearly a year. She was really suffering today and I offered to run her over to WGC so she could pick up a supply. She turned me down at first, went to the canteen for something to eat, but came back shortly afterwards and asked if the offer was still open. It was, of course, so we had a very pleasant run to WGC in the glorious sunshine and she successfully obtained what she needed. She's got a long weekend this weekend, so I hope the drops work and she can enjoy it.
And now I'm a weary mousey and I'm going to bed :)
Today was archiving day at work. We'll bypass my rant about the fact it's only come down to me because a) I made the mistake of running out of work one day last month and b) Sicknote has been avoiding doing the job for about six months because she hates work, because it'll take a long time to type out and I wanna go to bed. Plus I start to develop a tic above my right eye *twitches*.
So yes, archiving. Because of long neglect, this relatively simple task had now reached a job of mammoth proportions. For months, any spare space in the office has been filled with brown archival boxes full of papers and records. Because they are financial, we are legally obliged to hang onto them for seven years. *sighs* You may recall I ranted about moving 57 boxes out of the loft a while back? That was Stage 1 of the process, which freed up space in the loft to put all the crap that was in the office.
Stage 2 was checking the contents of the boxes in the office, assigning a box number, assigning a label and recording the details. The boxes were then stacked into a very large metal trolley, taller and wider than me by some margin, which then had to be manhandled down a corridor, into a rickety old lift, up to the loft, down another corridor, to the attic room assigned to us. Then the boxes had to be unloaded and stacked inside the room. This is fiddlier than it sounds, because our room is a separate room off a much longer storage room. The door to the main room opens inwards and neatly blocks off the door to our area. *sigh* So you either have to bring the boxes in one at a time, kicking the blasted door out of the way each time and wrestling the box around it, or when there's two of you (Sicknote did sort of help a bit), one slides the boxes past the door and the other person retrieves them and hauls them into the room. Rinse, lather repeat, 18 boxes at a time. I did this trip twice today, and I'll have to do it at least twice more tomorrow.
Stage 3 was the really fun bit. Not. Basically, I sit facing a wall, and along two thirds of the wall's length are four very sturdy shelves. The lowest shelf is just above my head when I'm sitting at my desk. The highest shelf can only be reached by LongLanky, the Finance Manager, who's approximately 6' 2" tall :P One half of the shelves house PartyGirl's Nursery Grant folders, the other half houses all the Year End and Quarterly Returns that I process. However, the actual shelf space for those ran out before Christmas so subsequent files have ended up being filed on my desk and down along the work surface to my right, which was traditionally used for fax/photocopier/emergency work surface stuff. It's been a right royal pain in the arse, frankly. So I can't grumble about doing the archiving for that bit of it, it's "my" folders, fair do's. But oh what a horrible job it was! First of all, there was the torment of wrestling the flatpacks back into box shape. Hah! Then there was the issue of getting the folders from the highest shelf down. Not hugely difficult, I just knelt on my desk and reached up. The problem was when I attempted to get down in haste to answer the phone. I overbalanced slightly, slithered off, scraping my left shin wonderfully, desperately tried to get the left leg onto the ground to get balanced, missed the ground, found the bin, which being big and square, was big enough to tilt up sharply, ramming it's hard, metal edge into the bit of shin I'd just scraped. By this time, my right leg had remembered it had a purpose in life and helped me to regain my balance.
There was muttering as the bin got
After that, it was just a case of taking all the returns out of the files, stacking the paper into the boxes (3 files worth of returns to a box) and doing the numbering/labelling/lugging of box into hall to stack on metal trolley. I finished the bulk of it before I came home, and there's less to do than is already done. And I'll have shelf space again briefly. Hurrah!
On the plus side, I earned some karma today. PartyGirl has been suffering sinus trouble for a long time and today she found out that a chemist in WGC had a supply in of the nasal spray she used to use but hasn't been able to get for nearly a year. She was really suffering today and I offered to run her over to WGC so she could pick up a supply. She turned me down at first, went to the canteen for something to eat, but came back shortly afterwards and asked if the offer was still open. It was, of course, so we had a very pleasant run to WGC in the glorious sunshine and she successfully obtained what she needed. She's got a long weekend this weekend, so I hope the drops work and she can enjoy it.
And now I'm a weary mousey and I'm going to bed :)
exhausted
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