Pofficegeist

I think my cubicle is haunted.

Most desks I’ve seen can be compared to a peaceful river. The grains of the wood desk flowing from one side to the other, clean and smooth. You can even see your reflection in this variety. My desk, on the other hand, is more like the Arctic Sea. Cold to the touch and floes of mountainous paperwork floating on its surface. Maybe all of it will melt away come summer. But until then, I’m allowing it to contribute to my haunted theory.

Earlier this week, the iceberg of paper invoices got out of control to the point of chaos. While searching for my ID card (buried under the slew of budget white sheets), the entire mass shifted ever-so-slightly to the left. This wouldn’t have been a big deal at all, had only a few pages fallen gracefully to the floor. Instead, it sent my coffee mug spiraling to the floor.

No, it wasn’t filled with coffee. I said haunted, not apocalypse.

No, my coffee mug is filled with hole punches. The small paper discs that are the result of binderfication? Yeah, we collect them. Rather than just throwing them out, they are collected for a special day – normally a co-worker’s birthday – when a snowstorm takes place. This is incredibly frustrating, since no one wants to spend their morning picking up individual hole punches all morning long.

Hey, that’s office culture for ya.

But you know when I said that the coffee mug is filled with hole punches. I need to make an edit on that. I should say it WAS filled with hole punches.

Sure enough, I had caused a snowstorm in my OWN office by moving that icy stack of desk paper. The best part is when everyone walks by and gives you that look that says, “Hey, did you know there are hole punches everywhere?” And you have to respond with a counter-look that veers away from sarcasm. That’s a hard look to pull in this situation.

Every night, the janitorial staff comes in and vacuums the halls and common space. My cubicle is neither hallway nor common space. Looks like I’m screwed until I move offices.

That would be okay, considering there’s ghosts in our mists.

I went to a 10 AM staff meeting shortly thereafter. It was your usual “too many people are talking for this to be over in the time it was supposed to” variety. An hour an 15 minutes later, I returned to my desk, so that I could make more snow angels on the ground.The hole punches were GONE.

Now I don’t see a vacuum cleaner in sight, nor a janitor to operate one. And ruling out logical, normal resolutions on a whim, I’ve settled that my cubicle is haunted. By a neatnik ghost.

Nordghost.