As I observe the desks of my colleagues over the years I notice that people bring a lot of their home to work, in the form of aunt Agatha's recipe book, the kid doodles and legos and latest birthday necklaces. Cute but please keep it by your bedside. Unless you also sleep at work (like Castanza then you are excused).
Perhaps because they also bring work to their homes in the form of their crackberries, iphones or laptop computers and keep fingering it even on weekends. I subscribe to neither. I do work out of my home at times and that is business hours. I do not take my home life to work either. I have no other living material growing in the office space or showcase family pictures or any other knick knacks that people seem to accumulate over time including some wine their former boss passed them three Xmases ago. I make an effort to also ditch all paper since theoretically we are living in the land of paperless offices.
I am not a fan of any organized sport or religion either so that helps to declutter my surroundings. Same with all manners of food products - which in America you can procure within minutes. So why keep them at your desk? Frankly the desk is also an outdated man made concoction since you can connect remotely any time any where. Marissa Mayer at Yahoo thinks different. But hey to each her own.
Unless you are in a classroom type setting or where you need to enjoy the complete chemistry of the larger populations you are not adding any incremental value to a conversation or deal by just being there (with or without your accouterments).
You are a farmer you have to be in the office - you cannot remotely trim your crop or check for infections - at least not yet. Same with food processing or medical advice and services. Some of the latter can be managed through a camera and a high speed data connection but it has its shortcomings.
Finally on the subject of books that people like to show off including trophies and titles and awards - that accumulate space in their offices - they are more a distraction than anything. If I came to talk to you I do not really care if you got a five year award for outstanding service. I am interested in your servicing my needs now while I am INSITTING!
Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...
The books in your office show how intelligent you were ..the tense is past, unfortunately. Present is there for all to see, in plain view.
ReplyDelete