It’s moving day here at my office. Due to recent acquisitions and a real estate consolidation, the building that I currently work in has been sold. Everyone that works in the office park is moving to another office park about 5 miles down the road. It’s no big deal to me. Work is work. When you’ve worked in as many offices as I have, you start the get the feeling that all offices were created equal.
Sure some may have an open floor plan. Some may have a ping-pong table. Some may have a great cafeteria. But I all really need to be productive is three things: the breakroom, the restroom, and the printer.
Yesterday as I nonchalantly packed up my single box of stuff, I walked around the floor to check in on my office mates. I was shocked to see how much stuff people were carting around with them. One person had 8 boxes of stuff that they were bringing with them. He had nick-nacks galore, binders and papers that even he admitted he didn’t know what for, enough office supplies to last at least a year, and so much more. The guy looked so stressed that he wouldn’t have enough time to finish packing before we all had to be out of the office at 5pm. When he asked how I was coming along, I laughed a little and said,
“I’m done. I have a firm one-box rule. I only keep enough stuff at the office that could fill a single box.”
I don’t keep a lot of stuff at my desk. I have one framed picture of my family, one piece of my son’s preschool art, and one fake orchid (if it wasn’t fake, then it would be one dead orchid). I keep an old coffee mug filled with some pens and dry-erase markers. I rarely print out anything other than my expense reports. I don’t keep a lot of junk around me. It makes moving a breeze.
Plus it keeps my desk uncluttered which in turn gives the impression that I have my act together even when I don’t.
Great post!
Normally, I try to make my office as personal as I can — I figure I’m spending most of my waking hours there, by God, it’s going to be a pleasant place to be. However, with this job, since I spend about half the workweek working out of my house, I haven’t felt the need to personalize my work office, since my home one is *so* personal. So this job? I’m living the one-box rule myself!
K.
karenwalrond | September 6th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Robyn, you sound like a seasoned ad agency veteran! I too try to keep my personal belongings to one box (I’m also constantly trying to cut down on file cabinet space) because in the ad world, you are constantly moving offices and god forbid, if you’re asked to “leave today” due to layoffs, you don’t want to be schlepping a cart of stuff down to your car with the HR director in tow.
Brenda | September 8th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I too use the one-box rule - it’s just a really really BIG box, lol.
Seriously, I keep the amount of junk in my office to a minimum but I do like to have decorative items around to perk up my otherwise institutional office.
Virginia | September 9th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Wow, can you come empty out my office. I had like 10 last time, and got rid of a ton of stuff.
Nicole/wksocmom | September 12th, 2008 at 1:52 am
Karen - I always figured why make it personal when I don’t want to me cooped up in the office any longer.
Besides, I work best in an uncluttered environment.
Brenda - Never worked in an ad agency but the software world is just as volatile. After 4 moves in three years, I’ve leanred to keep it simple. I don’t want to have to keep packing up the same old junk.
Virginia - Yes, offices are so insitutional. My beige walls are bore-ring. I wished that companies would splash a little color around. Beige cannot be the best color for productivity.
Nicole - the worst culprits are always the long-termers at the office. I’m sure there is some direct correlation between years worked at a company and how many boxes of junk has accumulated.
robynroark | September 19th, 2008 at 2:01 pm