Comments on: Neatness counts: A messy desk can hurt your career

By: Molly

Molly — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:48:39 +0000

I agree with Doug and Anne. This article was really quite extraordinary. It reminded me of two things. First, that in the novel, 1984, Orwell goes to great lengths to describe how visually perfect the office environments are, including the desks. I found it particularly chilling that the main character, Winston, a civil servant, never really has anything extraneous (like a bit of paper or pencil) on his desk. Secondly, this article reminded me of a profile I read of mass murderer Marc Lepine. In the 1980s, this man shot and killed 14 women who's "crime" according to him, was that they choose to pursue a "male" profession – engineering. After his shooting spree, he killed himself. In subsequent articles following the police investigation into his life and habits, it was revealed by the chief investigating officer that the man was so anal-retentive that not a single thing in his apartment was "out of place."

Creative people in particular rarely have tidy desks. Their approach to almost everything they do is to find connections between the random, patterns in chaos, etc. etc. How can anyone do this if EVERYTHING is put in its place and there's no room for "accidents" or "mistakes"?

I enjoy your blog very much, but I must say this article struck me as narrow minded both in its approach and its conclusions.

By: matchmaker

matchmaker — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:08:43 +0000

On a whim, I tried the candy corn kisses. I regretted it. I guess I expected them to taste like candy corn. I thought they were pretty bad, actually. At least the kids liked them. I’ll stick with regular candy corn and regular chocolate kisses.

By: Keeping Clean In Order to Get Things Done | Jason Unger

Keeping Clean In Order to Get Things Done | Jason Unger — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:43:14 +0000

[...] says that having a messy desk can hurt your career — and points to FBI data that says "people with messy offices are [...]

By: Anne

Anne — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:24:20 +0000

I quit a job where a short-sighted manager forced us to have a clean desk every night, much as you've suggested in your article. The net effect was to make us spend hours every morning digging out all the paper that we were forced to shove into a drawer rather than leaving it stacked where we could see it and pick up where we left off. I resented this a lot and left to get my masters and PhD. (Not just because of this issue, obviously, but it was typical of the valuing of perception of over the reality of being allowed to get on with my work in the way that worked for me). Both my masters and my PhD supervisors always work from piles of paper. They are both visual organizers like me, and the piles represent tasks that need to be done. They are both outstanding in their fields and not surprisingly, much better to work for than the short-sighted, neat-desk boss who attempted to force conformity. I think your advice here is extremely silly – or perhaps it's true that you need a clean desk to get ahead in the corporate world, in which case I'm very happy I escaped.

By: jrandom42

jrandom42 — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:56:12 +0000

Notice that some of the "messy desk" employees at GE included William Hewlett and David Packard.

By: Doug Ferrell

Doug Ferrell — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:34:06 +0000

Wow. I don't know where to begin. It seems like you have had very limited exposure to a variety of workplaces. Perhaps you should do a little more research before making such a strong statement about desks and careers. Different people think and work in different ways. The goal of an employer should be to maximize the efficiency and capability of its employees, not to enforce ridiculous top-down mandates which only serve some executive's ego trip.

In some fields, especially technical ones, becoming a manager is not the goal. Rather, solving difficult problems is. Perhaps if you want to be a ladder climber at GE or the FBI your advice makes sense, but I do not see any basis for the extreme generalization you make.

And managers are advised not to promote people with messy desks? Please. You seem to have very little understanding of jobs which require a person to actually achieve tangible results. This is the basis for promotion at any sane workplace. GE makes a profit from the products it develops, produces, and sells, not by "developing" more managers.

Try reading this for a different view:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/smth08.shtml

By: Brazen Careerist

Brazen Careerist — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:47:48 +0000

List of things I hate

Here is my second annual list of things I hate. However, it seems to have morphed into a list of types of people I hate. But this seems fair; no one’s animosity should be limited to inanimate objects. 1. Perfectionists…