to feel furious about moving office

[Casxy]

I've just been told before I left work that I have to move out of the office I share at work to a new one and I am furious. I am so angry I am practically in tears.

I have only been at this job since September. I moved all my stuff at a weekend last year. It took a day to unpack. I share with one other very senior person, who I like and whose work interests me so although we don't work on the same projects we often talk. She is horribly messy and unhygienic but she often isn't there. Others at my grade don't have to share but I haven't minded: at least the room itself is big and light and I usually keep to my desk in the corner.

Since I have been in the job they have given me more and more responsibilities to manage and set up courses, so I am always busy but I have said yes because I wanted the team to grow. Since January I regularly have to deal with students' pastoral concerns and so it is good to use the bigger room. I'm also just next door to two more colleagues I work well with.

Then today I got told that someone else wants my desk and I have to move out over the summer. This person is also very senior and often works out of the country so is being asked to give up her individual room. She is not happy and she has decided she wants my space because then she only has to move across the corridor.

My line manager just came in and said I have to move out. He says he is too busy to get involved with people's feelings about this, but he has told his boss that the first place they wanted to put me is no good - its sharing someone who has meetings in her room all the time. He is going to suggest sharing another small room elsewhere in the building with a new, junior member of staff. I get no choice or opportunity to comment.

I am just so cross. I have checked with my current room mate and she says she was told today as well and it wann't her call. I feel that I have taken on all the extra responsibilities they have given me and I am being treated like an office junior. The thought of spending another 2 days packing and moving my stuff literally makes me want to cry. I don't have the time.
I really feel like applying for another job.

AIBU?

Well I am having my homeworking removed after 12 years - 12 fucking years I tell ya! and have to go back into an office. I don't think I can stand it. I will have to get dressed in a morning.

Shit.

Just go in your pyjamas pursuedbyabear

I would say that unfortunately you are too busy to move and you will only move if you have it confirmed by email that there will be now be an extra 3 day delay on x, y,z project.

You quite clearly work very hard and I'm sure moving will impact your work in a negative way, won't it?

It's not my pyjamas, it is my mucking out clothes I spend the day often sometimes. They stink.

I can definitely appreciate that people are worse off, which is why I feel it is maybe U but I am still fed up. It really does take a day to pack shelves of books and files, and a day to unpack, and to set up a new computer and change all my contact details. I know because I just did it. I am expected to maintain all of this reference material and records. Its not personal junk.
I think I sound obsessed by the status here because that is what it has made me feel like. The atmosphere is we are all on the same team when it comes to sharing responsibility but when this person wants my space then I just get told that she has made a fuss so I have to move.
I think what is really annoying me is that no-one who is taking the decision has even acknowledged that it will be inconvenient, or worth discussing the things that I do in my job and what space I might need. All I have is one person telling me that someone else has decided to put me in a room that he can already see won't work. He'll try to get me something better but I mustn't complain.
Its like I have found out that they are all fighting for themselves, but I am the person at the end of the line who is not allowed to fight back.

I'll be able to fulfill my role at work if who ever I end up with is agreeable to leaving the room when a sensitive pastoral matter arises - probably once a week - and does not mind me holding teaching meetings for usually two-three hours a day in there, and regular days of twenty 15-minute interviews. There is no other space to do this work in.

heck in work i am not on the same ward 2 days running

A couple of points you could raise - and I would do it in writing to my line manager, CCing their boss :

"Others at my grade don't have to share but I haven't minded"
Query why you have to share at all. You were OK sharing with this one person, but now you'd rather be accorded the same privileges as your peers.

"Since January I regularly have to deal with students' pastoral concerns and so it is good to use the bigger room."
Raise the matter of student confidentiality and how you would not like to endanger that. And that if your new room were not able to meet the students' needs, then with regret you would have to surrender dealing with these concerns, in the best interest of the students.

"This person is also very senior and often works out of the country so is being asked to give up her individual room."
Who's getting the room? You have a demonstrable need for such a room. And it would minimise disruption in the move etc.

"My line manager ... says he is too busy to get involved with people's feelings about this"
It isn't about feelings, It is about the smooth running of the department. He cannot be too busy for that since that is his job, no?.

"I get no choice or opportunity to comment."
Take the opportunity. They can't stop you.

I'll be able to fulfill my role at work if who ever I end up with is agreeable to leaving the room when a sensitive pastoral matter arises - probably once a week - and does not mind me holding teaching meetings for usually two-three hours a day in there, and regular days of twenty 15-minute interviews. There is no other space to do this work in.
They need to give you a private office for this kind of thing, sharing with someone who is there a lot/all the time isn't going to work.
Before packing anything, go and talk to whoever you are supposed to be sharing with and let them know these things, let them start to co,plain and get you a private office before you end up packing twice.

Thats Complain not co,plain ??

I don't get why people get so attached to their desk/location in the office.

I get told where my team of 24 go. We have been moved 4 times in the past 18 months. I really couldn't care less where I sit at work.

I am a senior manager and have to sit in an open plan space. Be grateful that you are actually getting another office.

Surely there meeting rooms which you can book for meetings?

It took me a day to pack up my house when we moved. My house!!!

I've never known anybody really have that much say over the office they've been allocated. But it would seem that the type of work you do requires both you and the students to have privacy, which is what you need to address with your line manager. The space is irrelevant, so long as if accommodates you, your work and a student.

My entire team lost their desks last month. The company then moved an entire sister company in. We now all share my desk and hold our meetings in the pub!

Office space costs money so more and more people are being crammed into existing space. You really do have to lose your emotional attachment to your office and realise how most companies operate at this time.

"and to set up a new computer and change all my contact details"

Why does your IT department not move your computer with you? Where I work we have moved about our office countless times, but we all get to keep our computers because we all, have different permissions for access to the network, use different software, have different contact details etc.

Just how much stuff do you have to move?

I think you're overreacting. I thought at first you meant to a different building in a different part of town that you didn't want to travel to. Really, what's the big deal?

dramaqueen, I don't think you read the OP properly: she's dealing with sensitive pastoral issues and needs somewhere to do that privately. Would you be happy if your son or daughter was having problems and had to talk about them with their tutor in a busy open-plan office where random bods could hear every detail?

But this isn't about stuff, or time, is it? This is about how you are being treated compared with how other people are being treated. Other people's needs/demands are seen as more important than yours.

This happened to me in my last company. I was seen as the 'good girl', and was always the one that was asked to move. Eventually, when I was told I was being moved again, I dug my heels in. But whilst it was alright for others to throw their toys out of the pram, I was expected to go along with things and not upset the applecart. (How many more cliches can I fit in?!)

I don't know how you resolve it without appearing to be awkward - I couldn't. It was one of many final straws for me that led ultimately to me leaving the company and setting up my own!

But if you feel strongly about it, and really don't want to move, you need to make it clear. But focus on the practical reasons and not your feelings about it.

Are you an academic, OP? If so, your university's estates department should be moving the contents of your office for you.

I'm sure there are meeting rooms but I guess the op is expected to be responsive to her studens' needs

Great advice from Whereyouleftit. OP - you can pursue that approach without appearing to be over-emotional or unduly distressed by bad management.

Good luck..FWIW, YANBU given the circumstances, but I do think you have to recognise that there is an expectation for 'junior' (ie more recent) members of the team to be more flexible/grateful-for-their-jobs/whatever, and that's just the way the world works.

But I would think about asking (afterwards) for a meeting with your manager and HR, and openly discuss his management style - specifically being told he doesn't want to engage with emotions etc - so that they can confirm/deny that this is how HR expect management to operate in your area.