I'm a Clean Desk Person and Proud of it...

The Monster Blog: Are You a Messy-Desk Person?

"... According to a recent study by Ajilon, messy-desk people (let's call them MDP) tend to have higher salaries than non-MDP; specifically, while 66 percent of Americans making $35,000 or less per year are self-described neat freaks, only 11 percent of those earning above $75,000 claim the same. Also, the more educated tend to be messier; only 16 percent consider themselves neat, whereas the percentage for non-college graduates is 29.

...

The study also relates that your coworkers may be judging you based on your messiness; if you take three people sitting around you, for instance, one doesn’t care about your messiness, one will judge you for being messy and the last would say it depends on who you are. ..."

Interesting...

I'm not afraid to say I'm a clean workdesk person. I just can't stand clutter and ick in my work area. I have all my desk items organized (the stapler goes with here and always right here... unread mags in this stack, read ones here, etc, etc).

As you might have already guessed, I can be anal-retentive (AR) sometimes. ;)

But I look at it like this. I have to remember too much crap already and am juggling too much stuff. I keep my brain full as a matter of course. So when I need something I want to be able to easily find it and not have to play the "where did I put xyz..." or "in what pile is ..." game. I need to put my hand out and just find it.

I also see it as a matter of pride thing. It's MY workspace and keeping it neat shows I have pride in it and myself. And it's an Army thing. Keeping my stuff neat, cleaned and organized was pounded into me for a number of years and that's hard to let go...

I still believe neat and clean is better. "God, what an ugly, nasty mess ..." is not something I want anyone to say about my work area.

[Greg] "My name is Greg and I'm AR ..."


[Note to those I work with:
I'm not talking about the god awful mess in your work areas... really... truly. I'm talking about OTHER people's messy work areas... yeah... um... Well anyway that's my story and I'm sticking with it... ] :|