The SOQ from Hell

We've been given a bit of a reprieve at work - the office relocation date has been pushed back from January 31st to February 15th. This is welcome in that it gives me more time to clean, organize and pack; I've been so busy over the last couple of weeks that I really haven't made a lot of headway in that regard. I still can't say I'm overjoyed about the prospect of trading in an office with a view in Greenway Plaza for a cubicle with no view in the congested Galleria/Post Oak area, but earlier this week I did learn that the new location will come with at least one advantage: a full-service reproduction room with a full-time, on-site representative from a quality local reprographics company. I have a feeling that this new resource will come in handy. In fact, I certainly could have used it this last week, as I labored to put together a Statement of Qualifications for a bid for a south Texas city that ended up being a lot more expensive, time-consuming and frustrating than it should have been.

I really shouldn't go into details here and now - we'll hopefully know in a few weeks whether we got the job or not - but there were several lessons I learned from this ordeal. For example: maybe it's not a good idea to try to put together a bid package at the last minute, without any production or graphics support from my company's Business Development folks. And maybe it's not a good idea to rely on a copy-store chain to print and bind my documents for me, especially since the quality and reliability of said chain has fallen dramatically since they were purchased by a certain shipping company several years ago. And finally, if I do miss that certain shipping company's Saturday afternoon pickup deadline, maybe I should research the same-day delivery services offered by my hometown airline before deciding that my only option is to fly to Corpus Christi (nice airport, by the way), rent a car and drive to the south Texas city in question in order to ensure that the bid package is delivered before the Monday afternoon deadline.

Having a full-service, in-house reproduction room with dedicated staff would not have solved all these problems, but it certainly would have made last weekend a lot easier for me. If this resource is going to be available at my company's new location, then maybe this relocation thing won't be such a bad thing after all.

Now, if I could just do something about the stupid cubicle...