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Tidiness

18:11 / 10.03.02

Went for a job interview last week. Good money, ad. was enticing, seemed like OK people when I got there. Had no doubt I could manage the work.

Sat down, nervous and sweating, ready to do an impersonation of the man who was going to wow the bastards with my organisational development skills and waited for the hard questions to flow.

And the first thing on their agenda was a tidiness test. Obviously their No. 1 top priority. I thought it might be a joke but no sign of faces suppressing smiles. So I made my way through two pages of rating the degree of offence it caused me if:

I saw a can of coke on a colleague's desk

I saw a piece of paper on the floor beside the shredding machine

A trainee put his jacket over the back of a chair during a training session

It went on and on and, frankly, I wanted the job so that I could be reunited full time with my lovely partner, so I lied.

Then I thought about the kind of people who rate tidiness above all other considerations and decided I would go mad working there. Haven't heard yet but I don't think I'm their kind of guy so don't expect an offer.

Perhaps I'm just a slob. My principal worry would be that I can't see "tidiness" and creativity happening in the same space and the creative bit is one of my biggest selling points.

[ 10-03-2002: Message edited by: ZoCher ]

18:15 / 10.03.02

I am uncommonly untidy. My office stays tidy for all of 3 seconds, if it can ever make that claim. Tara, on the other hand, is insanely tidy. I drive her nuts. Or more nuts.

It's one of the little joys in my life.

Zoom.

18:45 / 10.03.02

That's funny, for me creativity and *un*tidiness can't happen in the same space. I get my best ideas when everything around me is neat to the point of being blank, like a blank canvas.

But then again, I am clearly not normal in this regard: I always rearrange the salt & pepper shakers and silverware, et. al., at my table when I'm eating in a restaurant. We have agreed that I can do this, as along as Husb. is allowed to have own silverware arranged as he likes. Which he normally turns upside down and diagonals, just to annoy me.

But ZoCher, how do you know those tidiness questions weren't there to *weed out* the overly tidy?

[Edited to say "neat" instead of "clean," which are not the same.]

[ 10-03-2002: Message edited by: Persephone ]

18:58 / 10.03.02

quote:how do you know those tidiness questions weren't there to *weed out* the overly tidy

Think I've shot myself in the foot by lying, if that should be the case, Persephone. However, have to say they did mention "tidy personal style" in the person spec. but I hadn't thought they meant that tidy.

That sort of sneaky approach would be just the sort of thing we'd do where I work at the moment though. Where, oddly enough, I am very very happy...

I think I could be creative in a pristine space as long as it was just about coming up with ideas but when the process is underway, I need to draft and redraft and play around with bits and pieces of things to test things out. If I stopped to clear up behind myself all the time, I'd get nothing done. Nothing new and fresh anyway.

I guess I am a slob. Zoom, will you open a branch of The Temple of Zoom in London and employ me as your training manager? Can't take many more of these Sunday nights when the Elephant God and I have to part again for a week...

20:03 / 10.03.02

Id have thought "tidy personal style" would have been more a reference to your appearance....ie not bitchiekittie

thats quite bizzare

20:22 / 10.03.02

Guess that's what I thought too, bitchiekittie. And being an interview situation I was so-o-o tidy in my personal style. Had even polished my shoes. And Ganesh had ironed my shirt and lent me a suitable tie...

Glad to hear the personal tidiness thing isn't universal. I was getting a bit paranoid. Checking out my colleagues, thinking "I bet they have their tools neatly arranged in their drawers" and "I bet they're up to date with their filing."

It's not like I can't do tidy when I have to. But there needs to be a purpose. I was a theatre nurse for a while. Never been so clean and tidy in my life but that made perfect sense...

20:38 / 10.03.02

I think maybe its the word "tidy" that I take issue with....it has such neurotic, overly-fastidious meaning for me. I can just hear a particularly annoying schoolteacher asking me to "tidy my desk", followed by some snotty comment about my hair (in its semi-permanent state of disarray). and now Im rambling for the sheer joy of ramblification

20:44 / 10.03.02

What's that saying, "A tidy desk is the sign of a cluttered mind"?

20:48 / 10.03.02

Well now, *personal* tidiness... that's another thing. Combing my hair tends to fall by the wayside, on busy days.

I suspect that tidy and untidy people alike feel paranoid about the way they are. When you're tidy, you're made to feel strange. And the untidy have the whole second law of thermodynamics on their side...

20:50 / 10.03.02

If we're talking about personal tidiness, what if you're not untidy...just rumpled? Is being rumpled the same as being untidy?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:11 / 11.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Trijhaos:
What's that saying, "A tidy desk is the sign of a cluttered mind"?

Or the sign of a harrassed and generally put-upon temp.

09:18 / 11.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Mordant C@rnival:

Or the sign of a harrassed and generally put-upon temp.

...or the sign of someone with literally nothing else to do

09:18 / 11.03.02

if they are using that test without a trace of orony then they are obviously freaks and you are better off out of there.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:50 / 11.03.02

I reckon everyone has their own standards of tidyness or untidyness. In an office environment, for example, some people will go into conniptions if they see a fizzy drink on your desk, whilst being quite happy to cover their workspace with every fucking piece of Happy Meal detritus that they can lay their sticky little paws on. Basically, crap is only crap if it doesn't have a chunk of Blu-Tak sticking it to the monitor. I've patented this idea, and am currently in negotiations with various waste-disposal companies, including Nirex and Steps' record label.

09:50 / 11.03.02

i've been meaning to tidy my office since january, 2001. tomorrow, i've decided, is the day. the plan is to get a book on tape, and listen while I pull all the books off my shelf so I can reorganize them, get my filing up to date, etc. but will one afternoon be enough. I don't know.

at what point does tidiness become anal-retentiveness?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:50 / 11.03.02

quote:Originally posted by bitchiekittie:
...or the sign of someone with literally nothing else to do

...except fuck up your day, of course. "Well, pretend you're working!"

Must... get... degree...

09:50 / 11.03.02

ooh, pretending to work, thats the key, innit? because if you dont, some other bastard whos also got nothing important to do but really doesnt feel like doing that little crap chore they should get around to some day - filing, making labels for a binder, some other such shit - will ask you, in that sweet little I-know-you-aint-doing-shit voice "if you arent too busy, could you help me with...". and you want to say "no you hussy, I know you are just going to go into someones office and chat or go home and walk your dog while I use up all my perfectly good meaningless online time doing your meaningless crap!" but you know that she [/i]knows[/i] you arent doing shit, why else would you be rearranging your paperclip bin for the 7th time today....

ah, the politics of my uselessness

10:15 / 11.03.02

I have just counted the post-its with "urgent things to do" adhering to my blotter pad. 10 of them. Oops.

Two have just gone in the bin. No, 3. If I continue to ignore the other 7 and do something more interesting, I'm sure the world won't fall apart. Or maybe it will.

Just as well those tidy people didn't get back to me, really...

Getting stressed. Must go into deep denial and spend some time on urgent woolgathering /creative thinking. I wish I was bitchiekittie and could just distract myself cheerfully by looking at my breasts...

10:20 / 11.03.02

nah. now testicles - thats interesting

10:22 / 11.03.02

Tidy Tidy everything must be tidy, mother always said everything in its place, keep it tidy all the time.....tidy...

Yeah for me things have to be in the right place, you should see my desk everything is more of less perfect (including the way the pens face) - I can't concenrate if there's a mess around me...scary stuff

<Edited to correct some mistakes, but probably not all of them, is there a doctor in the house, something is wrooooong>

[ 11-03-2002: Message edited by: Bearnomore ]

We're The Great Old Ones Now

11:32 / 11.03.02

I have the heart of a tidy person and the organisational skills of a packrat.

I love clear spaces and tidy rooms (though not obsessively tidy rooms) but I am losing the battle against clutter-entropy on a massive scale.

11:36 / 11.03.02

I think "creative" people tend to be cluttered precisely because tidying up before working on a project is a great procrastination device. Like Persephone above, I feel like I do my best work in a perfectly tidy area. But my normal state of affairs includes piles of books, magazines, papers, etc. Perhaps tidying before creating is an effective "banishment" ritual.

11:44 / 11.03.02

My lovely female colleagues might be a little perplexed by me examining my testicles in front of the computer here, bk, but they are very interesting. I shall just imagine them....

I have just checked it out with my lovely colleaguettes and they say they wouldn't mind at all and are just checking out their own breasts now... Why would I ever want to leave these lovely people?

Nope. Not working. The Bear has scared me to death with his horrific tales of all the pens facing the same way. Taking deep breaths, trying not to get anxious....

I have just blitzed the desk. Nothing is filed but everything is tidy and neatly organised. Although the tidy people would still not employ me because I see a stapler, left after use, sitting out of the drawer.
And inside the drawers is pencil Armageddon!

I am working hard, in between posts, honestly...

pointless and uncalled for

11:50 / 11.03.02

The next time you get a tidiness tes you should explain to your interviewers that you like to organise your desk on the principals on the ancient Mongolian style Feng Shui Practices. if they hire you then you can keep chunks of uncooked meat lying on your desk and if anyone complains you can just tell them that it's there to assist with the prosperity of the company.

11:53 / 11.03.02

ZoCher a stapler - Oh God please tell me its facing South !!!!!

11:57 / 11.03.02

I'm really, really untidy. I'm comfortable with that. Sometimes it annoys me when I can't find stuff, but hell think of the time saved.
I just think keeping tidy is too much effort. I could be doing cool stuff instead. Oh yeah and I'm lazy.

12:01 / 11.03.02

I'm extremely untidy, but in an organized way. Yes, it looks like a mini-tornado hit my desk, but I know exactly where everything is...most of the time anyway.

12:15 / 11.03.02

Bear, I wish I could ease your pain here but sadly it's facing towards Fife, ie North...
I'm facing South though.

Decorous colleagues have now stopped examining their secondary sexual characteristics and have begun tidying up their desks too. I have twice been complimented in the last ten minutes upon the tidiness of mine (by people whom I suspect of taking the piss though).

A wave of tidiness is surging through the land and all at my instigation! Right, H, I'm off to find a slab of beef with which to decorate my perfectly feng-shui'ed desk.

pointless and uncalled for

12:20 / 11.03.02

C'mon Z-Boy Supreme, everyone knows that the Mongolians believed it was karmicly better to use a side of venison and lemon ginger marinade.

12:57 / 11.03.02

Hhhmmmmm, best I could do was a packet of Marmite Crisps. It'll have to do...