Please do not write below the line

I worked for an old company that had a lot of old processes and paperwork. Many bits of paperwork had a "do not write below the line" type areas. I always wrote something ... nothing ever happened.

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...

In a similar vein, I put an ill fitting jacket on a coat rack when I started my current job in 2012. We have moved offices twice, and the coat rack and jacket have followed me across both moves at no effort of my own.

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.