Please do not write below the line

I once hand delivered some paperwork (I was running late) to HR rather than using the inter office mail service. I asked them about it, they told me "Oh you must be Mathew..." I was HR famous. They didn't actually mind, the company was so process driven that having to visually double check my paperwork was just how things were.

Later on they decided to repaint the entire office because we had slightly changed the colors of our logo.

Not long after painting I jokingly put up a piece of paper on a huge white wall that read "This space intentionally left blank." The movers who took down the art put up the art on that wall again, and spaced it evenly ... around my note.

It stayed there for at least 4 years before we left for a new building.

Process...

We've been working remote now since the beginning of covid, but our office is still open for anyone who wants to use it. I visited earlier this summer and my jacket was gone. I asked our office assistant about it and she had apparently just recently moved it to a lost and found box, noting that it had been there as long as she had.

I told her the story about how the coat had followed me across two offices and twelve years. She seemed unentertained and asked me not to put it back. It's been moved to my desk for the time being.

It got turned into a commentary on corporate responsibility (everyone likely thought "I don't know why this is here, but it's not my responsibility to check"), workplace communication (between the movers and your company), psychological inertia [1] (at some point, people would've been surprised and bothered if the paper wasn't there anymore), and much more. There's at least a months-long art study project potential in this!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_inertia

"Don't turn this knob. But if you really need to, talk to this person first."

And that little bit of process is perhaps what keeps many industries safe.

(Tamarians is a Star Trek reference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok)

One coworker got every white board in the area. Another got a sandwich and some empty coke cans. Another got a sofa and an empty trash bag.

The Machine Works.

I'd be pretty pissed if movers ignored instructions and tossed any of my stuff away of their own volition. I keep some non-functional belongings that may appear worthless to others, and my judgement should be what matters when moving or discarding my stuff.

My favorite is those company get-to-know-you questions written or oral that ask you to yourself in one word.

"Does not follow directions."

A company I worked for a long time ago paid to move me across the country. It hired both a moving company and a packing company. They both arrived on the morning of the big move and I told them to take everything, as I'd already packed everything I needed for the drive in my car.

Ten days later, the moving truck and unpacking company showed up at my new place, and among the items they unloaded was my kitchen trash can, complete with its trash from the previous city. Thank God I didn't have anything stinky in there!

Unexpectly a book I always wanted to read, which was written by a VP, he said he was coming by, so I had him autograph it. His note "please take it easy on them." Sold for more than $200.

The Machine Works, and mostly not the way it was intended. Sorry.

I guess I could start calling such a situation "HPsquared and schlauerfox on Chesterton" : - )

So long and thanks for all the mislabeled SSDs. Just wiped them single pass, and used them in systems all over.

It's your judgment and that should always be respected, but everything else... Catch-22.

The movers binned the lot.

I realised this only after they'd left.

I was quite displeased.

This lesson brought to you by a mashup of Chesterton's Fence and The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

That jacket was specifically adjusted and positioned exactly there because it blocks just enough of thr EM interference from the old ass microwave in the small kitchen three floors down!

If the jacket isn’t there and Marge in accounts receivable starts making her breakfast burrito early one morning while they’re running payroll the main query times out and doesn’t automatically retry, so the header of the CSV file can’t pull in the right fields for each location, the export writes out blank headers, the bank can’t read the file, and THE ENTIRE COMPANY doesn’t get paid!

For the love of god, PUT THE JACKET BACK!

I wrote seven pages with diagrams, charts, and explanation of the weights and air resistances of various metal alloys that most planes are made of. There were foot notes and an additional two pages of citations.

And on the tenth page was just one line, "I made all of that up. I hope you enjoyed reading this."

I got so much hate mail from the physics department. It was amazing.

We build the best Rube Goldberg machines - they take out payroll when the mouse trap falls.

Later that office was being closed down to move into a smaller building and all or most of the office furniture besides the desks (cubes would imply actual walls) was priced to be sold to anyone who wanted it. I found my coatrack moved to that sale area and marked $20. (I just stole it back.)