Last week was some week.

It was Week Two of the move to the new office, and normalcy is still a few days away.

I spent the weekend here -- again -- moving boxes, setting up my computers, and doing other vital stuff so the office could be semi-operational on Monday. The first crisis came when some key information we needed for a major client simply disappeared. Worse, part of our database wasn't working, so we couldn't look it up electronically. Making big clients wait is not a good business practice.

The second crisis -- which I knew was coming -- was the staff reaction to how we divvied up the space. It wasn't pretty. My company, StaffWriters -- which has about three full-timers but is fixing to grow fast -- has been sharing offices and developing strategies with Invision, a Web design company, that employs about 50 people and is expanding rapidly, too. We all made the long march around the corner together to our new space. My counterpart at Invision and I tried to do a fair job of allocating cubicles -- those who didn't get them have desks in the open, and did we hear about it on Monday morning. Organizing a modern office would vex King Solomon.

Our solution was to tell everyone: "Relax, everything is temporary," as it should be when you're a young, growing company. We also left our doors open so people could vent freely. Discussion is the only way to deal with the important issue of space.

Change is always disruptive, even if it's for the better -- which it definitely is in this case. Invision and StaffWriters have a loose but affectionate partnership. For instance, we jointly own a recruiting Web site called LIJobs.com (as in Long Island, N.Y.), and we work together in a number of other areas as well. StaffWriters writes content, for example, for some of the sites Invision designs. And when StaffWriters has clients in need of Internet service or Web-site design, we bring in our technology partners, Invision. It's a beautiful thing.

For both of us, the release from our cramped, hot old quarters represents more than a change of landlords: It feels like a new beginning. The space will make so many things easier. We have a huge conference room, for example, to welcome clients and brainstorm among ourselves.

Anyway, by mid-morning Monday, people were starting to adjust, and I have to say they were troopers, putting up with no phone service till late morning and network connections that were sporadic at best.

By mid-afternoon, telephones started to ring. People were retrieving E-mail. You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief. It's amazing how we've all become attached to our computer systems. Without computers, business simply cannot go on. It was a good drill. I can honestly say we're ready for anything Y2K will throw at us.

There were, of course, other obstacles -- not mission-critical but personally frustrating. I have this computer desk that's made of stuff a notch up from cardboard. This is the third time I've moved it, and every time I do, the screws get looser. This time, they gave way entirely. Each time I thought I had one end in another would collapse. My son, who was helping me move some stuff, got so frustrated with this thing that he just quietly moved to a corner and stared at me as I slowly drove myself nuts trying to make it work.

"Why don't you just take it outside and beat it with a baseball bat," he said. "That's what I would do."

Unfazed by failure and galled by my son's remarks, I persisted, using larger and thicker screws to grip the particle board. It worked, but I drove the screws in from the bottom so now I have these long screws coming through the top of my desk like spikes. The person who designed this workstation from hell should be taken out and shot. Or worse, have to build a hundred and move each of them three times. I am looking forward to a trip to the furniture store. First I gotta stop off and pick up a baseball bat. I'll keep you posted.

George Giokas is the president and CEO of StaffWriters Plus, a specialty agency that places writers in temporary and permanent positions with corporate and other employers. It also provides editorial consulting work. His database includes 2,500 writers and editors specializing in more than 60 categories. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.