Getting personal

Getting personal

We all know someone who makes her office her very own personal space. (I say "her" here, because it's often a woman.) She can't work unless she is surrounded by items from home. Pictures of her friends and family are everywhere; her desktop is decorated with good-luck charms of every type; and her monitor is almost hidden under her impressive collection of toy pandas. Everyone agrees that she goes a bit too far. But should the company do something about it? Most firms wisely choose to be tolerant, as long as the worker is productive and doesn't deal with the public. Besides, what can the company do? Let her keep the charms, but force her to throw out the pandas? Tell her she can have only three things, like the Australian postal service once did with a worker of theirs? But what if, like the postal worker, she brought in a fourth item — would the company be prepared to fight over something so trivial? (The postal service was: they cut her pay. But then they got into a lot of trouble for it.) No, the only answer is to ignore these personal touches, as long as they don't frighten away the customers or actively disturb the other employees — and as long as she doesn't find a louder way of demonstrating her taste.

"A hard-working manager lets a beautiful girl into his office. A few months later, she has taken over, and he is out"

Step aside

A hard-working manager type in his forties lets a beautiful young woman into his office. It is hard to imagine a less qualified person than this girl, but the manager has lost his heart to her. His friends all see what's coming, and sure enough: a few months later, the young woman has taken over the office, and he is out on his ear. Is this another example of the gender wars at work? Or the dangers of a midlife crisis? Neither: it's a true story that just happened at my place. The girl in question is not even a year old, and the love-struck manager is her father. For months, they have shared his home office, with often comical and sometimes disastrous results. Now he has found a real office in a proper office building. She can finally sleep in peace, and he can once again sound professional on the telephone. It's a win-win situation — but one thing worries me a little. I recently caught her on the floor in my office, looking very busy indeed with a roll of measuring tape. Do you think she's got expansion on her mind?

KATHRIN ENKE is an American editor and translator based near Stuttgart. She is still getting used to her new boss: her baby daughter, born in September 2007. Contact: k.enke@spotlight-verlag.de