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I never thought that I could be so happy to smell diesel fumes! The exhaust, wafting in through the ventilation system just as the smell of barbecued chicken had just weeks before come to torment me, was coming from the moving vans parked outside.

In the words of George Costanza, "I'm bustin' Jerry!" I sat on the desk outside the data center last night and watched the moving crew dismantle cubicles and haul out furniture as I sipped from my coffee and grinned like the Cheshire Cat.

At last! Something so strikingly different that I can almost hear the chains snapping and the light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer and closer by the day now. After next week, there should be just the three of us in the data center left at the Wausau offices.

With each desk, with each box, and each of the hundreds of panels which make up the cubicles, that is loaded on to the truck, I feel a little more weight lifted from my shoulders.

They may not be packed up in the boxes, and they weren't loaded onto the trucks, but all of the problems are going right along with the company to Mosinee. I'm so very glad that I'm not going, but I really feel sorry for those who are.

I feel as though I've packed up all my troubles and sent them away, but for the sake of all of the hard-working employees remaining with the company, I sincerely hope that the captain of that ship -- whoever he/she may be -- opens their eyes.

In talking to almost anyone, in almost any department, they will tell you that they need help. This is a company which needs to expand it's work-force and it is moving in to tighter quarters which will restrict growth and perpetuate overwhelming workloads.

Last week, two women broke down and sat crying uncontrollably at their desks. Less people have been asked to do more, and there's no end in sight.

People are being chastised for pointing out problems and even when they are proven to have saved the company from an even bigger problem, no apology is offered -- no one said that the FBI had the market cornered on arrogance.

An executive right up front, by the main entrance, was reported to be spewing the "F-word" loudly, clearly, and freely. This kind of behavior from those who know better, in an area where customers are common.

Everyone seems to be at the breaking point, and yet no one seems to be able to stop it.

They've got sales-people getting commission checks in excess of $50,000 and not enough people to key the orders into the computer system. And that may be one of the most obvious problems they have, but certainly not the least of them.

Another problem they have, is a complete lack of leadership. There seems to be some kind of power-vacuum or something. Whoever is in charge is asleep at the wheel, or is just plain blind to what is going on .

I still do not know what is ahead for me. No one has come to talk to me about what will happen come June the first ... if anything.

It doesn't really matter though. I don't think that the computer system in the downtown facility will be maintained for very long.

When it is over I plan to get some career counseling, and do some research as well as some soul-searching, to decide which way to go from this crossroad.

It was about ten years ago when I helped move Graebel Van Lines into the other half of the same building; One Wausau Center. I was working in their 3rd Avenue offices when they moved to the former Prange's department store.

Now, watching the process in reverse leaves me feeling that I've come full-circle; in one side of the building, and out the other.

It just occurred to me that the desk outside the data center, where I sat watching Graebel's finest, was in roughly the same spot where I came to claim my free government cheese in the early 80's. ( Walter miller's grandfather called this "Reagan cheese.")

Here it is fifteen years later and I'm starting over again. The only thing constant is change, and Shit Never Ends (SNE).