The Big Office Mess

January 5, 2025

Moving into a new corporate office space is always a challenge. Everything needs to be done right. The move, the cutovers, everything from the design of the snail mail mailbox to the flawlessly functioning network. Moving experts provide plans, timelines, and recommendations on how to best provide all services to the office team. And sometimes try to save money, by reusing existing utilities. This makes sense, for things like electrical and heating systems. Office needs don't differ much, heating and cooling, electric, air quality, lighting- most offices are similar. 

The Ops team had worked with the office staff to spec our network. And had determined that the existing ethernet cabling would be optimal for the office. So the move-in was scheduled and nobody gave much thought. Ethernet, everyone agreed was the fastest and best option. Best of all the previous tenants had left both the wiring and their router. Which the IT folks had reset and provided a new super difficult password for. Seemed perfect, right? 

The furniture was expertly delivered. Everything labeled correctly and located and installed. Even every trash can. As the copier and computers were just starting to be setup, trouble began.

"Hey, my computers not working." 

"Mine is working but I can't get on the network"  

"Oh yeh, me too, that's what I meant."

It was a mess. The IT team said it was the router, and replaced it. The Ops team said the wiring was tested. Why didn't it work?

I gave it another day to figure it out. While they were doing that we went to Plan B. A wireless solution, which we implemented on Day 3. The network room became the Mother's Room. With a locking door. 1995 became 2014. Just like that. Are you still living in 1995? Do you have a network room looking anything like this mess? Do you have a Mother's Room? Do you know this is 2025? Why are you even in an office anymore anyway? Do you own the building? 

Is there any knowledge business that doesn't work better remotely?