"Helga began arranging her papers and stacking them away. Her office was always neat and impersonal, a machine could have been its occupant." (p. 106)
I worked in an office just before computers arrived and became ubiquitous. My attitude was that anything that came into my in-tray went into one of three places: out-tray; hanging file; waste paper basket. Thus, at the end of a day, there was nothing left on the desk but two empty trays and a telephone. Someone looking for a particular document was told that there might be a copy on Paul's desk. Having checked in my office, she returned puzzled and said, "There's nothing on his desk. It's as if he's left." My mother said, "They'll think you don't do anything." Colleagues always had stacks of papers, including out of date agendas and circulars, plus desk surfaces covered with layers of letters, minutes etc. When we began to work mainly on computers, I found it less easy to keep track of documentation which did still arrive.
Time to get ready to go out for the evening.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Ha! I try to be fairly neat about my desk at work, not leaving anything work related on it when I leave. But I'm nowhere that tidy with my personal desk at home.
And I remember how we once saw Flandry in his office at Admiralty Center in HUNTERS OF THE SKY CAVE.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment