Desk Hygiene

I shot this image of the moon and Venus yesterday evening in our western sky. According to this very informative website, the moon was in a Waxing Crescent phase with 11 percent of its surface illuminated. A beautiful night!

I had a pretty low-key day. I spent several hours in blogland, reading others' blogs and responding to comments on my own. I think I'm more or less caught up.

I was amused by John Gray's post showing his "untidy desk" (which was not at all untidy). It made me think about the reporters I used to work with and their appalling desks. If there's any industry that creates a less tidy culture than a print newsroom, I don't know what it is. Reporters, at least in my day, were constantly scribbling notebooks and legal pads full of handwritten notes, and stacking them up around the margins of their desks, along with police reports and depositions and old newspapers and all manner of paper detritus. I worked with one guy, Tom, who had years worth of paper piled on and around his desk -- he was notorious even in our messy environment -- and how he ever found anything I'll never know. I wish I had a picture of his desk now because it was truly remarkable. A paper mountain, or fortress, with a chair in the middle.

I guess the fact is, for the most part, we reporters only ever needed our most recent notes. After that, the notebooks and paperwork could be consigned to an "archive," in whatever formal or informal sense we maintained one. After all, news was a daily business, and we could always go back to our earlier published stories if we had to rehash older information.

I worked with another guy early in my career, Sam, who was notorious for leaving half-consumed mugs of coffee sitting atop his piled-up paperwork. Those cups sat there so long that they became biology experiments. I guess he must have cleaned them at some point but I remember them being pretty gross.

Personally, I always keep a tidy desk. I can't stand piles of paper. I remember reading somewhere that having too neat a desk sends a negative message to supervisors -- that you aren't busy enough. But I still kept mine clear. I saved my notes until a story published, or maybe for a few weeks or months afterwards, and then I'd periodically throw them all out. Even now, I keep my desk at work mostly empty -- which is hard because it's the main circulation desk in the library and it tends to be the place where people flump stuff down as they're passing by. Whatever's on it is what needs to be done imminently, and then it gets shelved, filed or tossed.

I don't even have a desk at home. My laptop is my desk.

Here's Olga navigating the narrow path along the side of our house. It leads to the garden gate, which opens onto the street (except it's always locked). Every morning she has to go sniff around over there as part of her "rounds." Maybe foxes wander through? Or squirrels? Something keeps her intrigued.