‘Thank God it was only one week’

The shops previously located in the Polak building have now been successfully relocated. It’s been a week since Study Store and Canon Copy Shop, Randstad and Hair Design by Lydia resumed their full time activities last Monday. The phone call from the university on the evening of Thursday 19 October, announcing the evacuation of Polak and a strict ban on entering the building,  came like a bolt from the blue. And at first, there were no further instructions on what to do the next day.

However, all four shops say that the university provided a great deal of assistance with moving them into their new premises. And in some cases, the new location is even an improvement. “This location is even more convenient!”

Dianne van Haver, employee in the Canon Copy Shop, explains how much work had to be done during the hectic week of relocation to the former In De Smitse location on the ground floor of the Mandeville Building. “There wasn’t even electricity here. The university staff were really supportive, though, helping us move all the equipment and furniture, setting up all the connections and restoring data. Being unable to use the printers, we’ve had to forward our big orders from the faculties to other Canon locations in Gouda and The Hague. We have no idea when or whether we’ll go back to Polak; we were just told to wait for a report.”

Romy de Jong says she really likes the new office on the 16th floor of Tinbergen, especially for the great view. “This location is even more convenient. We now have two quite big rooms, one for the staff and one for consultations with clients. In our job, we’re used to going to our clients’ offices, so we continued doing that during the relocation week. We didn’t receive too many calls from people unable to find us, and the new location was clearly highlighted on the website. Now we can invite them to come more often, having this separate space for meetings.”

Romy also agrees that EUR staff were really good at facilitating the relocation and informing them about it. However, she doesn’t expect the Polak to reopen during the next few weeks, as they were initially informed. She also shared her surprise about the cause of the relocation, and particularly that even entering the building was forbidden for a few days.

Owner Lydia van Santen is still uncomfortable with her new location on the ground floor of Hatta Building. “It feels really unfamiliar. We couldn’t move much furniture from the previous location because it was attached to the floor, so I have to get used the new surroundings here. The first person I called when I heard the announcement was Dianne van Haver from the Canon Copy Shop. We’ve known each other for over twenty years, first as neighbours in the Tinbergen Building basement on campus, after that in V-building, and then in Polak.”

“On the whole, the university did a great job relocating us, because in the space of a week they’d managed to install the water supply and electricity. One week without work, however, meant a week without income for me. I had about 250 telephone calls from clients. I’m happy to be back at work, and I think I’ll get used to it in a week or so. It’s very uncertain whether and when we can return to Polak, though. I don’t think we’ll be back before Christmas.”