Master of the Messy Desk...

last night, i came across an old issue of GO magazine that i swiped off of my flight to phoenix for my friend electa's wedding last year. i remember reading THIS article about the true value of a messy desk, and thinking 'wow, greg is going to hate reading this.' greg, my boss at the time, had to look at my cubicle everytime he went in or out of his office and made a comment about on 99.9% of his trips. i think he even used to test me, by asking me for things that: a) he knew i had and b) he figured i wouldn't be able to find because of the "mess." he absolutely HATED that i could always find exactly what he was looking for. after returning to atlantic city after my trip, i proudly photocopied the article and stuck it in every person's mailbox in my department, being that it had eventually turned into the weekly meeting joke of the week, for 23 weeks straight.

it's funny how often i read articles in business magazines and management books about this topic. and i've come to realize a few things about myself based solely on these articles:
1-i'm more efficient than 72% of my peers. (because i don't waste time cleaning!)
2-i'm more creative than genetic equal should they be a neat freak. (hence, the clutter!)
3-i'm ironically more systematic than 34% of the american population. (gotta have a system to... organize the mess?)

now i realize that this doesn't go for everyone in every profession. i guess i'm just lucky that my field breeds creative, swashbucklers. it's a bit more accepted, well, by people other than greg. i'd probably do a 180 if i walked into my accountant's office and saw that his desk was a certified disaster area in need of an immediate call to FEMA, but i walk into a chef's office and see a pile higher than mt. ranier, i feel at home...

"organized people are just too lazy to look for things."