The premise for today's post?

It's about the numbers.

Perhaps vaguely related to the fact that I'mlosing a title I'm fond of. Maybe not so much that, though both are corporate directives from above, I suppose.

Wait, attend me for a moment. I shall explain.

Scuttlebuttin the hallway is that we will be moving soon to another building closer to the core Windows developers (~3 minutes by scooter closer, to be precise, which I can be since I have scooted there in the past).

Now I'll definescuttlebuttas arumortold to me by move than three people who have no direct connection to each other in terms of hanging out with each other (as far as I know), etc.

This does not mean it is true, but the likelihood of eventual truth is heightened.

Given that I'll define arumoras apremature fact.

With me so far?

Maybe I should have a glossary to keep the terms straight....

Well, I was once told by an admin that all things being equal it costs ~$500per person to move a group from one building to another. I don't know of that number includes the productivity time to set up machines again and deal with all the problems, but let's pretend that it does.

That was a few years ago but let's assume the figure is still valid for a moment.

It may be wildly inaccurate and she was not looking at some official document when she said it, but we're gonna calculate using someTennessee windagehere, making broad simplifying assumptions.

Okay, now there are ~250full-time employees and at least25contract resources in our organization in our building.

Let's assume that the $500 per person figure relates to contract resources too, and if not then we'll assume people like me (who need help from lots of people to move) cost more, and that it all evens out.

Well, I will now take all of the numbers above and do a little math:

(250 + 25) * $500.00 = $137,500.00

All to put the group three minutes closer to the other folks in the larger organization (five minutes closer for the rest of the people without scooters who don't hitch rides from me).

In my mind this is even worse thanmoving just to get the carpet replaced, something Raymond Chen wrote about a couple of years back when he lost a computer as part of the bargain.

These figures might not be exactly right, but since the admin who mentioned that $500 figure did so half a decade ago, it seems like it might be a good conservative estimate for current purposes.

Now I suspect that I won't get a cut of the money here.

Since they will almost certainly still do the move anyway, even though it is (in my opinion) largely pointless, (again in my opinion) makes no sense, and we did just move half the team to shuffle them around the building less than a year ago and packed everyone up before that to replace carpeting in the building anyway.

Now in truth they have already moved a bunch of people in other groups (including moving the hundreds of people who were in the building that they are now moving us to since it would be inapproopriate for us to sit in their laps) which means the actual full savings to Microsoft would have been even bigger if some bean counters had decided to notice this earlier -- like 2-3 times bigger, or maybe more.

Reaching for the stars (maybe this should have been a ThinkWeek paper, or maybe it has been?) if this thinking were applied to the whole company perhaps many millions could be saved?

As an aside, one of the groups I personally have the most contact with at the moment is one of the ones just moved 15 minutes away by scooter, which makes meetings with them much more painful. Not entirely relevant but perhaps of mild interest the scuttlebut I hear from theme is that they generally don't care much for their new building and (for lasck of better words) its creative workspace

In case you were wondering, I hate moving.

Which is likely why I am feeling so grouchy about this.

In fact, the only thing I hate more than moving is moving gratuitously.

Moving is hard on mephysically(by which I meanmedically), and I am on record a saying I would skip my turn in theWindow office seniorityfor the group at least until the next time some other later move was happening or even forever if it would keep me from having to move again, especially just for the hell of it, which really is hard, and (at least for me) quite demoralizing. I acually have to take a sick day (or even sick days) after all the packing is done.

Can I be any clearer on how much it sucks for me personally?

In truth, I guess I have lots of alternatives here. For example, I could...

• ...refuse to leave the building for medical reasons (I have no gun to hold out with, but I'm fairly certain they would avoid the photo-op of having the police to drag a cripple out of the building!);
• ...interview with whatever group moves into Building 24 and work for them instead (building loyalty? It works for reception!);
• ...just move all my stuff home and work from there, and scoot in for meetings (which I would not mind at all, I live across the street);
• ...stay in 24 working for Windows International until the next meaningful, worthwhile move is scheduled (there is precedent -- several people who left our group still work in our building and have not yet had to move to where their new groups are and I would just be one more of them!);
• ...find some other group to work for that can avoid gratuitous moves of the handicapped (which in my mind is a very small and inconsequential money-saving demand to make of a group);
• ...just give up and move to the new building (honestly the least attractive of all options, to me);
• ...just take it as a sign and work to negotiate a RIF.

Depending on how much this post pisses people in my management chain, that last option might be my most likely one. :-(

Although since I am told that all things being equal employees cost over twice what they are paid and in my case it's even higher given my higher medical costs, they could also save even more than the above figure in like six months or less to RIF me and then they could still move everyone else if they really wanted to so badly....

MaybeI am just being grouchy and I'll pay for this in some way later.

Maybeby later I mean as early as later today. :-(

Maybeeveryone else really wants to move and I am truly the crotchety old man that I apparently have the reputation of being.

Maybe, you're wondering just what this has to do with internationalization.

To which I would tell youabsolutely nothing.

Which is yet another reason why I feel that this would be a gratuitous move of the international team. 

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