Moving - A Lab's Ultimate Nightmare?

The calendar now says December, a month we have long dreaded here at Aspen Research. Normally we get the year end rush of people trying to get things done before the end of the year while they still have the money in the budget, but this year is entirely different. We are moving across town to a new location.

I've never moved a lab before. When I worked for a megacorporation, my wife's division had to move their lab to another building, but that was move from one lab building to another lab building. Things like hoods and benches were left behind and were already in place at the new location. This is entirely different. We are taking it ALL with us: extruders (and all of their auxillary equipment), benches, hoods, sinks... pretty much everything except for the lingering aromas of the many thiols I work with.

Why the move? Expansion. The new building is twice the size of this one and we will need it all very quickly.

In some ways, the sale of Aspen Research from Andersen Corporation back in February was a practice run, even if very little physically moved. As part of the sale, we needed to divorce ourselves from all the shared IT resources (not just internet and computers, but accounting, HR...), so we've been there and done that fairly recently, and in this day and age, quickly and efficiently moving and reestablishing IT resources is everything. Fortunately email addresses don't change, cell phone numbers don't change and the desk number (which are changing) will be rolled over automatically for a year.

Hopefully Santa Clause will still find us in the new location. There is this capillary rheometer [*] that I really want and I've been a good boy all year...

[*] "...with a compass in the stock and a thing that tells time..." and no, I'm not going to shoot my eye out.