Odds ‘n’ sods: Time to move on

We’ve been given a box and told to pack up our belongings. This isn’t because of a restructuring, or layoffs. No one is losing his job. The office is changing locations, pure and simple.

Change is good, but not necessarily easy. We’ve become comfortable in a rut. Suddenly we look around and realize time has gone by, in an unexpected flurry, and belongings have accumulated on a logarithmic scale.

It’s hard to know where to start. Pulling a booklet off the shelf, I turn to the first page and see the inscription, “Please return to Mary Lou, H.R.”

“Who is that?” I wonder, and I ask a person who has been here since the dust bunnies first appeared on the premises. Mary Lou, it seems, hasn’t worked here in a dozen years. I leaf through the booklet, just in case it could be helpful, . . . but I find that it is an operation manual for a phone that doesn’t look like any phone with which I have ever had contact. Into the recycle bin it goes. Old computer manuals with floppy disks follow in quick succession.

This may not be so hard after all. One book at a time, one shelf at a time. Why is there a copy of Othello at the bottom of my drawer? Now that’s a surprise! The filing cabinet wasn’t broken all these years after all: an annual report had slid up and wedged itself behind the drawer.

A stack of hard hats is piled on the floor against the wall. What to do with those? Some have historic significance. Besides, these things save lives! The lettering on one announces a significant event in a company’s life. One can’t part with that. They might be worth something on e-bay, now, or in a few years.

I hear a stifled cry, followed by a thud and it is easy to imagine the chaos in the office next to mine. I can’t help but go to have a glance in the door. Sure enough, through the fine particles of dust settling in the air, one sees the aftermath of a finely balanced stack of Northern Miners strewn on the floor. It’s an impressive heap, even larger than mine. I can sympathize. They were probably (almost) in chronological order.

In this digital age, paper is being replaced, but perhaps that is even more reason to keep the hard-copy back issues of annual reports that it has taken years to collect. It’s hard to throw away things that have sat for years. It’s like admitting there was no use for them in the first place. And that is wrong.

There was a power outage in our building the other day. In accordance with Murphy’s Law, it was production day for the paper. Some people felt helpless in front of their useless machines. But most geologists had the foresight to keep some hard copy lying around, and at least they had something to read. An hour and a half, with no Tim Hortons to help pass the time. It was a day to remember.

Back to the cleanup. I pull an aspirin container out of my drawer. This time I check the expiry date: April 2002. Perhaps that’s why my colleague still had a headache after he took one last week. I chuck it in the garbage. And I look around.

Rock samples act as paper weights on stacks of papers. At one time, the stacks weren’t quite so high. I think I just stopped looking, like a horse wearing blinders, as the stacks grew. So I tackle the rocks. These samples aren’t just any rock. You can’t go outside your door and find rocks like these. Most are from far-away places and are therefore irreplaceable. To an unknowing eye, this collection would be dull, but it’s a rare and lucky individual who has chunks of gold lying around the office. I could tell a story about each rock here (“But would anyone want to listen?” I ask myself).

Time is fleeting. The bins are almost filled to overflowing, and this is just the start.

The Northern Miner office is changing locations Aug. 13. Our new address, should you care to drop by, is 12 Concorde Place, Don Mills, Ont. It may be a bit sterile to start with, but give us a few months, or years, and I’m sure the collections will have piled up once again — like the sedimentary process, where sediments are eroded in one place but deposited in another. We may intend to change our habits, but nature will have its way.

— The author is a staff writer at The Northern Miner’s Toronto office.