Final week we talked about shared area / hot-desking horror tales and listed below are 10 of my favorites that you just shared.
1. The torn-down signal
Now we have a financial institution of shared desks which aren’t really general-use sizzling desks, however sizzling desks particular to our crew. Nonetheless, as we’re typically out and about supporting different colleagues or delivering coaching out within the subject, we’re normally solely in in the future every week. Individuals realized this and began utilizing our desks as sizzling desks, and all our tools progressively failed/vanished, and once we DID are available in, there wouldn’t be any desks obtainable. So we put up indicators.
One of many different individuals got here in when a colleague and I had been in a gathering elsewhere on web site however arrange at our desks, and about half an hour after the indicators went up. After we bought out of the assembly, he’d torn the signal down that was on the desk the place he was sat, put it face down on the desk, then outright denied it when questioned. Nobody believed his lie, however our supervisor had a phrase with him and put up extra signage. He nonetheless sits on the desks other than in the future when the indicators state are just for our crew, however he refuses to talk to any of us.
2. The cellphone calls
I’m at present residing via a desk sharing state of affairs the place we each must work a few of the similar hours. This requires us to take a seat on reverse sides of the identical desk with laptops. Nobody can use the screens for worry of it being “unfair.” That’s dangerous sufficient, but it surely will get worse. Not my setup fortunately, however close by, a number of occasions per day a neighboring coworker will make or reply very non-public private calls actually sitting at a desk a foot from their desk mate. Matters have been: baby assist (that wasn’t paid), screaming at individuals she believes to be stealing from her, and a few very NSFW inappropriate feedback thrown in (loudly). In the meantime, her desk mate is trying to be on work calls. My coworker (her desk mate) has requested a transfer however is at present caught there along with her two days every week.
3. The tickets
I’ve an assigned desk, however I solely work within the workplace in the future every week. The opposite 4 days, I earn a living from home. Which means my desk is out there 4 days week to be used as a sizzling desk for folk who don’t have an assigned desk.
One gentleman (“E”) who is aware of my schedule makes use of my desk as a sizzling desk incessantly. And apparently runs into simply an unfathomable variety of technical points. I’ve misplaced monitor of the variety of assist desk tickets E has opened for the tools at my desk. However since it’s my tools, I’m the one who has to subject the assistance desk techs after they try and troubleshoot. Assist desk techs typically drop by on whereas I’m within the workplace to troubleshoot the technical problem du jour. We’re, surprisingly, by no means capable of replicate the problems E claims to expertise.
Usually occasions, after I shut the assistance desk ticket, nothing else ever comes of it. Often, he’ll re-open the ticket. As soon as, a assist desk tech wrote down very detailed directions on the best way to resolve the USER-CAUSED problem E was experiencing at my desk. I left them on the keyboard for E to learn the subsequent day. E despatched me an IM on Friday telling me he’d thrown the directions within the trash (???).
With all the problems he appears to expertise utilizing my desk, I’ve typically puzzled why he doesn’t simply sizzling desk in one of many 5 different open desks in my dice share. The world could by no means know.
4. The photographs
Coworker #1 shared a desk with Coworker #2, who was going via a drawn out break-up with Coworker #3. We had been by no means fairly certain if the connection was formally over. At some point Coworker #1 discovered a number of photographs lower up into little items within the desk (our constructing had a photobooth that printed bodily photographs). Coworker #1 realized they had been all photographs that included Coworker #3. That wasn’t the official finish of their break-up, but it surely did add to the lore as they continued to go on and off for years.
5. The dedicated decorator
I used to work at a spot the place there was a morning shift and an evening shift, so everybody shared a desk with one different individual. I introduced in slightly 8×10 image and hung it up on one half of the little space as a result of I wanted one thing to take a look at (no home windows), however didn’t wish to overwhelm my desk mate.
The evening shift man throughout from me had no such consideration. The three little partitions of his desk space had been completely COVERED in stuff – photographs, a framed Nickelodeon Journal with Larissa Oleynik on the quilt (when she was a toddler on Alex Mack), the slipcover of an X-Recordsdata DVD field set, the sticker they placed on the nook of a tv set to let you know it’s display screen measurement … simply essentially the most weird stuff.
His deskmate lastly complained and he was instructed he might solely beautify one half of the area. So after I got here within the subsequent morning, he had meticulously measured the area so he was taking on precisely half. At Christmas, he introduced in a household photograph album and left it open to a special web page day by day. Then he introduced in a single child-size dress-up Cinderella excessive heel. This plus many, many, MANY different issues led to him finally being fired.
6. The pile
Once I was employed on at a small social enterprise, my desk was pushed up towards my boss’s desk, back-to-back. It meant that we sat instantly dealing with one another all day. I’m a tidy individual and by no means have litter on my desk, whereas my boss was a borderline hoarder. She had a number of towers of free papers, at the least 15 tchotchkes, and an intensive nature assortment that included feathers, skulls, and a dried bear poop that she favored as a result of it had seeds in it. There was nearly no seen desk floor.
Inside a day, her litter had crept over the border and onto my desk. I ignored it, however the movement was unstoppable. By day 3, the slow-moving landslide of junk had taken over the again third of my desk. Since she wasn’t in that day to speak to her, I took all her junk off my desk and neatly piled it again on hers. The subsequent morning she profusely apologized and stated she can be extra conscious, whereas commenting on how tidy and sterile my desk was.
This turned a sample: all through the workday, a paper stack can be nudged onto my desk, or an animal bone would fall from an overflowing basket onto my printer. I began propping up objects to create a fence on the border, à la Dwight Schrute. A number of occasions I politely talked to her about needing my desk to be freed from litter. Nothing labored. Each afternoon after she left, I might take away her objects and neatly stack them again on her desk. Each morning she would apologize and proceed the sample. I might see her disgrace rising. A few 12 months later we moved into a brand new “workplace” that she had constructed which was a log cabin with no indoor plumbing, heating, or cooling. There was an outhouse with no working water. I stop a number of months later.
7. The unauthorized plant
I used to be a “rover” at a financial institution the place I used to be despatched to new branches day by day to cowl for absences — principally a substitute financial institution teller and banker. One department had a plant care service the place these individuals would are available in and have a tendency to the vegetation which had been, I assume, a part of a contracted service. They’d water them, trim leaves, polish leaves, and many others. They silently entered places of work to keep away from bothering the bankers.
I used to be sitting in a woman’s workplace working when a plant woman stormed in pointing to a plant and demanding to know the place it got here from and that it wasn’t their plant and so they don’t look after unauthorized vegetation. I shrugged and instructed her this isn’t my workplace neither is this my department. I’m simply sitting right here for now. She got here again at the least twice extra to really reprimand me, primarily her firm’s shopper, and demand solutions. It was the strangest factor to occur to me as much as that time. I left a word for the plant proprietor that she had higher watch her again with these plant girls.
8. The log-ins
Years in the past, I labored at an workplace the place most of us had been within the subject all day, and we shared two desktop computer systems for knowledge entry, payroll, and different admin duties. One in every of my coworkers was zealous about cyber safety, so he up to date the desktops to set very safe passwords (lengthy strings of letters, numbers, and particular characters).
Sadly that meant that none of us might keep in mind the passwords, so that they had been written on post-it notes taped to the desks (very safe!). The actual bother started when he transferred to a different workplace and one of many post-its was misplaced. I don’t know if anybody was ever capable of log into the information entry laptop once more.
9. The desk stroll
After I completed my masters, I thought of transferring from SmallState College to Bigwig College for a Ph.D. (my advisor was retiring and there was no one else in my space to work with) after I visited the campus, the grad pupil who was exhibiting me round introduced me to the grad pupil workplace – a room crammed with so many desks that he needed to stroll over one individual’s desk to get to his. I modified my analysis focus and stayed SmallStateU, the place I had a 3 individual workplace and a sofa.
10. The Pop Tarts
I used to be an costly advisor again within the dot.com days, introduced right into a medium sized firm that was creating early web buying software program. That they had the total dot.com tradition, together with a number of free meals. What they didn’t have was numerous area.
My desk was a laptop computer sitting on prime of an enormous case of brown-sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts in the midst of the breakroom.
I’m the adaptable type – on the fee they had been paying me, I needed to be – so this was wonderful. The one problem was that at any time when somebody wished a Pop Tart, I needed to carry my laptop computer and allow them to into the cardboard case so they might seize some. This usually occurred about seven occasions per day.
Alternatively, I ended up with a 13% increase from that project, and I bought all of the Pop Tarts I might ever need, so I assume it was value it.
