Filthy Desk

Clean it up! I live in a sea of grey cubicles, no windows, fluorescent hazy lights, and the soft glow of computer monitors staring at me from every angle. The environment sucks bad enough naturally. I don’t need to look at and smell your filthy garbage too. Engineers are disgusting. Most of us share cubicles and have about as much work space as a those Asian kids making linens for Martha Stuart. 2000 thread count sheets don't sew themselves.

Even the most tidy of our ilk have the problem of space, so keeping complete order is difficult. However, exacerbating the problem with your four day old Starbucks cups, 32oz Wendy’s carafe from lunch, and no less than six empty diet Mt. Dew cans, is simply unacceptable. With these tight quarters, your space IS my space so give me a break and throw out some of that crap.

What’s worse is the fact that we take care of our own trash where I work, so those that choose to throw away their wrappers and banana peels often do so under their desk. That doesn’t help when you don’t dump your garbage until the bin is overflowing. The remaining half of Monday’s tuna sub is smoldering from hot CPU sitting next to your trash creating a make-shift kiln. I’m holding back the bile over here. So here are a few rules.

No wet or decomposing garbage in the waste baskets under your desk.

Replacement policy: if you get a new drink, the old one must be removed from your desk and disposed of in the proper place. Go dump out that flat, watered-down Dr. Pepper in the drinking fountain if you must. At least it gets cleaned.

No tuna at your desk – ever. I used to break this rule, but now know better. I’m here to spread the word.

Recognize proximity – If you can smell your food/drink, I can smell it. We are literally 3 feet from one another.

Empty your trash – Do this once a week whether you think you need to or not. Bread molds, milk sours, and the Chinese take-out carton stinks more than ever. I wouldn’t have to give you this rule if you would have followed Rule 1.

If your houses are anything like your desks, please don’t invite me over for dinner. I’m not coming. Again, I am amazed at the number of educated, inconsiderate slobs I encounter everywhere….and they complain that I am a clean freak. Call me what you will, but at least you won’t be smelling any old apple cores or last-night’s goulash coming from my side of the room. If anything, you will get the soothing aromatic waft of some watermelon hand sanitizer, and for that, I say “You’re welcome.”