A few things:
- If you are going to bring a guest to the lab with you for an entire week, and that person has no professional business in our lab, and during that week your guest will be occupying our *shared* office, it is generally courteous to inquire of the other person(s) with whom you share said office whether they mind. You know, out of respect for the fact that it is also *their* office and that accommodating another person in an already cramped space might be a teeny bit inconvenient for them, and might possibly disrupt the work that they are here to do. (For the record, when asked in the above manner whether it is OK with me for your guest to come to work with you, and spend some of that time in our shared office, the answer is yes, it's fine. However, I don't feel quite so charitable when I am informed, rather than asked, whether this will be OK.)
- As per #1, your guest is a potential disruption and inconvenience in my working space. Which means that
requestingdemanding that I go to further inconvenience by disrupting my workspace is really over the top. No, I am not going to "tidy my desk" to accommodate your guest. I have two stacks of papers on it: one for papers I need to read, and one for papers that I have read but intend to revisit. Your guest will not be using my desk during his or her visit, so there is no reason that the relative tidiness of my desk should be an issue. Also, as for the "clothes" under my desk. I keep a gym bag under my desk. I have (washed, never unwashed) gym clothes in it. But there is no reason that you should know that there are clothes of any sort in it, unless you have taken the liberty of snooping. I am sure you're aware that this is completely unacceptable behavior. - Finally, I do science. For a living. Doing science is what puts a roof over my head. Ergo, I am a professional scientist. I have a desk. It looks the way it looks, with a couple of stacks of paper on top and a gym bag underneath. It is my desk. It belongs to me, a professional scientist. Ergo, this is what a professional scientist's desk looks like. So when you ask me to make my desk look "more professional" for when your guest (who I have not invited) comes to our shared office, I'm not really sure what you mean. I'm a professional scientist; this is what my professional scientist desk looks like.
- Please go suck an egg.
AA
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14 comments:
I'm not sure they have to ask your permission to have someone camp out in your office. I think informing you is good enough.
That said, I completely agree with you on all the other stuff. It's your desk. You're entitled to your piles. And how did the office mate know you have clothes in your gym bag? Suspicious.
Can't help wondering why the guest can't go hang out in a coffee shop or library. Did you try suggesting that as a suitable solution?
I don't think I would take to kindly to any of the above mentioned items either. I am curious as to why anyone would want to spend a week camped out in an office for no apparent reason.
oh... "I don't mind another person in the shared office". However, if they're not there to work I don't understand why they are in the office? If they are there to work, it's not onmy desk - ergo never mind what my desk looks like.
THat'd be the problem with shared offices.... you can't decide what others desk space look like - as long as it doesn't smell or spread out fo the boundaries.
I'm more surprised you didn't mention "increase chatter and bothersome conversations" ... but then again, that's my beef with shared offices (don't get me started on cube life. really, don't)
Ms. PhD - I don't think that this person really needs my "permission" to bring a guest to work, in the sense that no one is going to say "no", and in a shared space, they probably don't have the right to. But I do think it's common courtesy to say, "hey, I have a guest visiting, and I would like to bring them here where they will be at my desk in our shared space. I hope that's OK with you." That's very different from saying, "I'm having someone visit our shared space for a week and I want you to clean up your personal space so that my guest will be more comfortable." To which I feel like replying, "Excuse me? My personal space over here is where I DO MY JOB. I'm not interrupting my work because your guest will be parking over there in YOUR space." Ugh.
And yes, to both of you. I can't imagine that our poorly lit little office is somewhere I'd want to spend a week after traveling half way around the globe. There is a coffee shop in a beautiful courtyard right across the drive in front of our building and the weather's even been lovely. It would be much more pleasant for her guest over there.
Eh, with me the phony "I hope that's ok with you" when the answer doesn't matter doesn't really earn any points. The pretend-politeness stuff usually just pisses me off even more.
I'd be perfectly fine with a warning ahead of time that someone is going to be invading my space and a "I just wanted to let you know."
Because you can't really say "No, it's not okay at all, I won't allow it." Right?
It's like my friend who stayed with us and insisted that I take her to run her errands "I hope that's ok with you" - even though she didn't ever offer to take care of her stuff on her own or do anything for me in return (at all!). There was no "please", no opting out, and not even much of a "thank you".
I learned an important lesson there about my willingness to do things for others on the assumption that they'll be, at the very least,
(1) considerate of my time & space needs, and (2) demonstrably grateful.
Especially if it's a favor I don't intend to ask for in return.
Maybe your only payback in this situation is to have one of your friends come camp out in your office sometime and see how she likes it? =p
Yeah, I see your point with the fake-politeness. Really, though, anything would have been better than how this scenario was brought up to me. "I just wanted to let you know" would be fine too, so long as it is not coupled with, "also, I need you to do X, Y, and Z for my guest even though they are not your guest."
Hmm, at my institute this wouldn't even be allowed, for insurance reasons.
Maybe the visitor will be more considerate than his/her friend, and would be perfectly happy to have a nice coffee shop suggested to him/her?
You can't fight unreasonable behaviour with reasonable behaviour. Clearly the only solution here is for you to start making random demands of the guest, such as asking the guest to comb their hair to make you feel more comfortable in your lab.
Heh. Enginerd, that is funny. Though it would be even funnier to request it of my office mate.
I imagine that the visitor probably would prefer the coffee shop, which has a lovely view of campus, so I will suggest it to him/her.
To be clear, I am really not objecting to another person's presence (though I imagine they would be more comfortable elsewhere), but rather to the manner in which my officemate has placed unreasonable demands on my working time and space and simultaneously insinuated that I am not a professional (because I/my desk doesn't look professional enough).
Yes. Indeed. Especially the part about cleaning your desk - science can be messy, busy, demanding work. As they say, if you've got time to clean you've got time to do another experiment. ;)
Best of luck!
This reminds me of something I read on LabLit a few days ago: http://www.lablit.com/article/581
messy piles of paper? check.
gym stuff under desk? check.
noise makers for demanding colleagues? well. not yet.
(but perhaps that's what you need in order to quell stupid remarks?)
Ahhhhhh....problem solved. I am moving offices.
I think that we will both be happier this way. My soon-to-be office mates are quite reasonable people who don't feel the need to police other people's workspaces, life choices, femininity, etc. so that will be mush more pleasant for me. And she won't have to suffer my unacceptable presence in "her" office for much longer. Everybody wins.
Of course, she is now tres insulted that I have opted not to share an office with her any longer. Wev.
Glad you found an easy way out. I blogged earlier about an officemate whose husband seemed to think our shared office was his own personal hangout--he'd be there 10-12 hours a day, 5 days a week. (I figured out later that this was because they didn't have internet access at home--he didn't have a job, and so spent all his time in my office with his laptop.) Fortunately for me, he had to go back to China after a couple of months.
I don't know if there's any law or school regulation about things like this, but it's sure annoying. Visitor for a day? Fine with me. Frequent lunch companion? Also fine. Someone else basically living there? Urgh.
I feel that item #4 is the most penetrating and insightful argument of the bunch.
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