Work colleagues with untidy desks/workstations

Doni Mack

Are you like me? Do you always assume these people also keep their home filthy aswell? Faeces on the floor etc..

GLaDOS

I like an organised mess, means I can find everything quickly

Doni Mack

ScienceNerd wrote: »

I like an organised mess, means I can find everything quickly

So you are an untidy person in work and at home?

Quazzie

People look at my desk and think its messy but I know where every little thing is on it. Organized chaos ftw. I hate people who hae ultra clean desks. They're anal and annoying.

Gone Drinking

I also have a messy desk, doesn't reflect siht on my personal life. Thanks very much.

AnonoBoy

Work colleagues who can't just mind their own f*cking business before they get my shoe up their hole are worse.

Wazdakka

My house is pretty clean and my work area pretty messy..

Then again I work in my work area, so there has to be various documents, tools and PC's within reach.

At home I don't read... Don't use tools as much and everything is wireless :P

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Doni Mack wrote: »

Are you like me? Do you always assume these people also keep their home filthy aswell? Faeces on the floor etc..

Don't think I've ever imagined a work colleage (or anyone else for that matter) living with **** on the floor...

Doni Mack

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Work colleagues who can't just mind their own f*cking business before they get my shoe up their hole are worse.

Some people live like pigs. One female colleague often spits yellow/brown flem into our communal bin for example.

sorrywhat

My desk is really untidy and messy but its clean. I clean it regulary.

I also know where everything is on it.

Now people with dirty desks are different....

ScumLord

Employees with tidy desks have to much time on their hands.

AnonoBoy

Doni Mack wrote: »

Some people live like pigs. One female colleague often spits yellow/brown flem into our communal bin for example.

Are you sure you're at work and not just living in a drop-in center?

Doni Mack

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Don't think I've ever imagined a work colleage (or anyone else for that matter) living with **** on the floor...

How can you respect someone who leaves half-eaten yougart cartons on their desk for 4-5 days?

adamski8

desk messy, home tidy.
Too many important papers that need organising but its hard/scary to work on them

Doni Mack

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Are you sure you're at work and not just living in a drop-in center?

Disgusting isnt it?

adamski8

Doni Mack wrote: »

How can you respect someone who leaves half-eaten yougart cartons on their desk for 4-5 days?

ah now you said in your OP "untidy" you hadn't meantioned filthy/dirty! those people do probably live in dirty homes, but sure thats their business

Doni Mack

adamski8 wrote: »

ah now you said in your OP "untidy" you hadn't meant filthy/dirty! those people do probably live in dirty homes, but sure thats their business

I am considering suggesting a 'Desk Police' idea in the discreet suggestion box.

PeakOutput

http://monster.typepad.com/monsterblog/2005/05/are_you_a_messy.html

According to a recent study by Ajilon, messy-desk people (let’s call them MDP) tend to have higher salaries than non-MDP; specifically, while 66 percent of Americans making $35,000 or less per year are self-described neat freaks, only 11 percent of those earning above $75,000 claim the same. Also, the more educated tend to be messier; only 16 percent consider themselves neat, whereas the percentage for non-college graduates is 29.

Some other MDP-related findings, according to the study:

* 56 percent of women claim to keep their workspace organized, versus only 42 percent of men.

* Northeasterners are more organized than their Western, Central and Southern colleagues; 59 percent of them keep their spaces streamlined, versus 50 percent of those in the Central US, 48 percent of Southerners and 46 percent of Westerners.

* Whereas 60 percent of 18-24 year olds keep their spaces organized, only 36 percent of workers ages 55-64 claim the same.

The study also relates that your coworkers may be judging you based on your messiness; if you take three people sitting around you, for instance, one doesn’t care about your messiness, one will judge you for being messy and the last would say it depends on who you are.

there are numerous studies that show that messy desk people are more intelligent and have higher potential than......well.......you. do a google

My desk is a disaster at the moment as I'm reading a lot of scientific papers among other things. But as others have said its untidy not dirty. I have to do something with it though, I can hardly move my mouse at this stage.

Odysseus

Its times like this I glad I have my own office in my main clinic. I have to share one in another clinic where I do some work, and I hate the way stuff is left lying around. Some of this stuff would be confidental material about clients. My own desk always looks messy, loads of files on it, but apart from clients I'm the own person working there.

stovelid

My desk is pretty bad to be honest.

Unless a colleague is planning to eat their lunch off it, it shouldn't really occupy their thoughts too much.

Doni Mack

Woah woah woah, as a scientist, I know that 'Studies' can be used to prove anything.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Doni Mack wrote: »

How can you respect someone who leaves half-eaten yougart cartons on their desk for 4-5 days?

Your exact word was "feaces". There is a difference between that and "yougart" (sic).

Shivers26

My desk is pretty messy but I share it with a seriously messy person. My stuff is mostly just piles of papers that need filing and when I get time I go on a rampage and clean it.

My house is clean and mostly tidy, I have to live in it after all.

petes

Mine is okay at the minute. But at some stage during the day I will pile anything I have into a neat bundle so it appears to look tidy.

The next day the pile is thrown out.

Doni Mack

stovelid wrote: »

My desk is pretty bad to be honest.

Unless a colleague is planning to eat their lunch off it, it shouldn't really occupy their thoughts too much.

But is last week's half eaten lunch still resting beside your stapler?

Flying Abruptly

I have pages, folders and books with stuff I'm working on all over my desk but I know where everything is, couldnt work any other way - id spend half my time looking in drawers and shelves for everything otherwise. If I'm finished with something I'll file it away.
Keeping old food on your desk is just wrong.

az2wp0sye65487

Odysseus wrote: »

Its times like this I glad I have my own office in my main clinic. I have to share one in another clinic where I do some work, and I hate the way stuff is left lying around. Some of this stuff would be confidental material about clients. My own desk always looks messy, loads of files on it, but apart from clients I'm the own person working there.

I had to re-read your post. The first time I read it as "loads of flies on it..." I was just thinking: :eek::eek::eek:

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

That would explain the feaces in the opening post!

kicom

My workmate (a Mac user) has an obsession about keeping everything in electronic form. I annoy him by handing out sheets when I'm giving presentations. He always has his hand up to ask for an e-copy, but keep fobbing him off. I know it annoys the hell out of him. Plus, he smells.

Doni Mack

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Your exact word was "feaces". There is a difference between that and "yougart" (sic).

I was pondering, if in the privacy of their own home, is their untidyness even more extreme eg Faeces on the floor etc

PeakOutput

kicom wrote: »

My workmate (a Mac user) has an obsession about keeping everything in electronic form. I annoy him by handing out sheets when I'm giving presentations. He always has his hand up to ask for an e-copy, but keep fobbing him off. I know it annoys the hell out of him. Plus, he smells.

way to save the enviroment and work less efficiently all at the same time

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Doni Mack wrote: »

I was pondering, if in the privacy of their own home, is their untidyness even more extreme eg Faeces on the floor etc

Great Scott, Marty!

Doni Mack

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Great Scott, Marty!

Interesting username

Apolloyon

Doni Mack wrote: »

How can you respect someone who leaves half-eaten yougart cartons on their desk for 4-5 days?

I rarely eat the cartons, I prefer the contents myself! Is there much nutritional value in the carton do you know?:D

It seems to me that people who have time to clean their desks when there's a load of work to do in the workplace are simply lazy do nothings just killing time until the end of the working day. I propose that arrange an unruly mob and chase them out into carpark and burn them at the stake! A little drastic perhaps but no price is too small to rid ourselves of those 'clean desk' ilk.;)

That is all.

Dravokivich

i've a sheet to the left of me with contact details if and when they should be required...

and a sheet in front of that... actually several sheets containing details of some work i did a while ago... keep'em there like a trophy of my success...

I've a box next to my screen with Sudoku Toilet roll in it...

have the cardboard yoke from a bog roll next it it with a smiley face and 1 of those daffodil day daffodils...

Phone to my right...

Fair right I've got a bottle of water.. but it's not actually mine... was there when I came back from leave a couple of months ago... thinking it may be bad mojo to move it...

Pace2008

Doni Mack wrote: »

How can you respect someone who leaves half-eaten yougart cartons on their desk for 4-5 days?

Taking one's head out of one's arse might help.

kingtut

Busy people do not have time to clean their desks or to use boards.

Messy Desk = Very busy person.
Tidy Desk = Lazy fcuk with nothing else to do.

Messy Desks ftw!!

FruitLover

Doni Mack wrote: »

I was pondering, if in the privacy of their own home, is their untidyness even more extreme eg Faeces on the floor etc

Yes, that's a perfectly logical train of thought, and an entirely sensible use of your pondering time.

SoulTrader

ScumLord wrote: »

Employees with tidy desks have to much time on their hands.

Once, I tidied my desk and was worried that it would look like I had no work to do. So I went to my paper recycling bin, grabbed some A4 pages and spread them over my desk.

Untidy, but not filthy desks, are the way to go.

stovelid

Doni Mack wrote: »

But is last week's half eaten lunch still resting beside your stapler?

What is this stapler of which you speak?

chakotha

I worked with a girl who used accumulate all sorts of nasty mess on her desk. Paper coffee cups stacked up and minging. She was always eating sweets and her keyboard and whole desk area was sticky from sugar. Each to their own.

Mine is more of a paper messy. 3 small piles of A4 sheets arranged somewhat tidily. PC, phone, couple of pens, stamps, stapler and diary and not much else.

ScumLord

stovelid wrote: »

What is this stapler of which you speak?

An utterly pointless device since these came out. One of my favourite pieces of late 20th century technology.

Pittens

I was pondering, if in the privacy of their own home, is their untidyness even more extreme eg Faeces on the floor etc

There is quite a jump from someone leaving a half finished youghurt thing around ( it starts with bateria, and ends with bacteria) and going home and sh*ttting on the floor, and leaving it around.

That's a jump.

Your original thread was about messiness, not dirtiness. I am messy but dont leave food around. My bedroom can have a book or two out of place, but the kitchen is clean because I hate the smell of grease etc. Similarly my desk can be paper messy, with occasional cleanups.

I am dubious about very clean desks - particularly with guys. I would assume that they were idlers.