(Sorry for the earlier technical problems!) This week’s poll is about an office space — if it’s your own, and you have a door that shuts and blocks it from view entirely, how clean do you keep it? (We’ll also assume, for the purpose of this poll, that you don’t have frequent clients or superiors coming to your office.) We have friends who keep their desks bare of all paper except the immediate project they’re working on — and we have friends who have files and boxes and loose papers and half-read magazines from the commute and pens and other things lying about on the desk and the floor, as well as spare shoes, spare clothes they keep at the office (suit jackets, more comfortable pants), and various food stuffs. Then there are the people who have the truly messy offices — the “wall of paper” offices, where you wonder how they were able to stack the files so high without the pile falling over. All this brings us to our question today: When does messy cross the line into unprofessional? Is it worse for women, who are more prone to keeping personal items (shoes, jackets, low-fat food items, etc) in their office?
What’s the messiest your office has been — and what did you do about it? Has anyone brought in professional organizers or bought office furniture to hide the mess? What’s the messiest office you’ve ever seen (and whose was it — a superior’s? junior? college professor?)
Photo Credit: Messy desk, originally uploaded to Flickr by elliottcable
