Leaving the Barn Door Open

How do they keep finding me?

Ok, a few minutes ago, Erik dropped off my daily mail from the morning delivery. In my job, I can’t say I receive the prime cuts of the mail run. No interesting packages, no ridiculously cool deals for free stuff (HR gets all those), not even super-important memos that will impact corporate policy. No, my mail is pretty much composed of invoices to pay, cost reports to analyze, vendor letters to laugh at, and billing statements to discard immediately. (Vendors looking for money that I owe them not. Waste of paper.)

But today, Erik had to laugh when he handed me my stack, For tucked behind the envelopes and cost reports, I had something new to not only analyze, but on the spot come up with a valid answer for my receipt:

A Pottery Barn catalog.

Speechless, I flipped over the magazine to reveal the address. Sure enough, there’s my full name, my business address, complete with 4-part mail stop number. This was no mistake. I grinned sheepishly as he walked away cackling. Somehow, the Barn was onto me.

But how did they find me?

Granted, we registered for our wedding at the Barn, but I can’t imagine they traced my work address from the home address of my wife’s parent’s house. This is not the NSA – it’s a mall store that specializes in candles, glassware, home décor, and stupid fake grass. And I don’t recall having any gifts for friends shipped to my office, which I often do to avoid leasing office headaches. (Although it may be possible – I’ve been to a lot of weddings in the last year.) And Lord knows I don’t have a whole lot of Pottery just lying around my desk. So there’s no magnetic homing beacon they could be using. Face it, I have no idea why I just got the Spring Collection catalog in my morning mail run.

Wait a minute, this has potential. Unlike stupid magazines that you have to dig through 17 pages of ads to find the table of contents, the Pottery Barn catalog prints them prominently right there on the back cover. And sure enough, pages 38-51 of this very magazine feature items titled “Good Ideas for Small Spaces.”

If my office isn’t “Small Spaces,” I don’t know what is.

Why hasn’t Pottery Barn thought of this before? America must spend millions upon millions each year buying home furnishings. And there are companies out there who furnish to the executive crowd, to outfit their luxurious offices. But what the workforce lives in these days are cubicles, and the People of Cubeville deserve to work in comfort and style if they so choose. So why not send catalogs to offices everywhere to unveil Cube-Décor (or Cubecor for short). I guess I’ve been selected to be part of a test market. Sweet!

First thing I would do is put up one of the Barn’s massive clocks. I could slowly pull myself away from the digital reliance in the bottom right corner of this computer screen and save my eyesight for years to come. Then I would get this picture frame hook. There are too many days that I sit in traffic because I’ve buried my car keys under paper, so this would alleviate that. Then I would hang some ridiculous chandelier from the ceiling, to appear more ominous. There’s nothing scarier to a construction manager than an ominous looking dude who is back lit by candlesthat controls his money. And because I can, I’m replacing my office chair.

I’ve never been in Pottery Barn without sitting in it for at least 15 seconds. I have witnesses.