My boss’s girlfriend just came up to me and gave me a heads up that my boss would throw a strop about some bags of clothes being left in reception to be picked up tomorrow, with the classic gem of “you can see how it looks untidy, can’t you?”
No, I can’t. I walk in and I see an office block that’s a hub of activity and facilitates it’s tenants. A place for meetings where staff are happy to help with requests, or an office where you don’t have to fight with the landlords (because that’s ultimately what we are) to get small concessions. A place that cares more about improving the community (which as a social enterprise is our purpose) than minor appearances. I’d probably think it was untidy if it was in the way for days on end, but the bags are gonna be back against the wall, behind the reception desk, for less than 12 hours.
What is it with people valuing things being out of sight? There’s a pragmatic element to general neatness, making it easier to clean, getting hazards out of the way, and looking nicer, but I don’t understand people throwing a fit because things are temporary less neat.
Anyway I moved the bags all of 5 metres into a meeting room next to reception. See if he whines about them making a mess of a room that isn’t being used until the middle of next week.
it’s an external signifier for an internal moral preoccupation with neatness as lived symbol of protestant goodness
This. Same reason people are ridiculous about their lawns.
Thank you for putting it so succinctly. This is one of those lines I’m going to write down and come back to when I get caught up comparing myself with my neurotypical peers.
Tbh it can also be a sign of being neurodiverse
I’ve never got that impression from him, but it’s a fair point. It has not been unknown for my neurodiversity to clash with other’s.
I don’t think this has much to do with neurotypicality. I think that a preoccupation with neatness is an adherence to bourgeois sensibilities that was inherited into society at some point in the past when some pompous dick had a preoccupation with it, and it became some sort of signifier into broader society of wealth and status. Since then, I reckon that parents probably berated/beat their kids over neatness to the point that they become adults with an unhealthy preoccupation with it, and they feel great anxiety when things aren’t neat because it makes them feel like they are in danger of receiving abuse, as they had when they were a child.
I had started thinking about the decadence of neatness and how it shows either that you have a lot of time to spend keeping it that neat or the wealth to pay someone else to keep it neat, and then realised I was going to start spiralling again so I thought about a ttrpg oneshot I’m going to run instead.
This
Can’t speak on your boss, but I’m starting to notice the way neatness is understood by myself and my peers.
I’ve seen two so far: Practical neatness d aesthetic neatness.
Practical neatness is making a space comfortable and navigable for the people living in the space. This is like taking off your shoes in the same corner of a room or area every day. It seems more intuitive in presentation.
Aesthetic neatness is more about presenting the image of neatness to others. This to me, is like having a explicitly designated spot for shoes in a room and making sure they stand upright and positioned properly. This version is less forgiving more prone to particular preferences.
There’s something I would refer to as “neatness to a fault” where someone is so focused on appearing neat that it’s detrimental to the livability (or in your case, workability) of a space. A great example of this is wanting empty counters in your kitchen so you put every single thing in the cabinets, but now every time you need to find something in a cabinet, you have to take 2/3 of the shit out and put it all back when you’re done - you can’t just reach in and grab the single thing you need and it’s a huge waste of time, especially for someone like me with ADHD. The amount of work required to keep the counters free of clutter is not worth the reward, you are much better off just leaving some things out, getting rid of things you don’t need, and/or building more cabinets.
There’s a happy medium somewhere, but good luck convincing management. They will of course find someone else to blame if the pickup is missed because the clothes are not out by reception when the courier arrives, hopefully it isn’t you.
My parents unplug their toaster and put it away in a cabinet when they’re not using it
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That’s exactly the phrase that was eluding me, thank you.
Luckily there’s no intermediary, it’s some guys from one of the local refugee charities coming to pick them up, but keeping them behind the front desk for tomorrow morning saves a single mother with long covid from having to drive over to the office just to open a door so they can access them. I didn’t have to put the bags there and the receptionist tomorrow morning won’t have the take them out to the car, so it’s not even like we’re expending our effort to save her some - even the space it was in is only otherwise occupied by a dead battery for a long-forgotten piece of tech. I just can’t rationalise all the extra effort involved in keeping it perfectly neat, and I’m kinda worried that if it gets brought up by him it’s going to be one of those things that turns into a shouting match between us.My partner’s parents are like this. Constantly complaining about our “clutter” because we keep everything we need to cook out in the open in our kitchen. It’s just better and faster that way!
I used to work at a job that required steel-toe boots, and I’d leave my regular shoes in a corner. My boss once complained that my shoes were “all over the place.” No Mike, they are in exactly two places.
I moved them behind a piece of equipment and I guess that was good enough for him.
Gunna’ need to see photos of the bags for my posse and I to deliberate upon.
Should have commented faster, I left 4 minutes before you posted. I can give you a description though: 2 large blue IKEA totes and one slightly damaged flower patterned tote filled with tops and jackets form the foundation. On top of them, again in a single layer, are 4 small, tightly packed black bin bags with cloth peeking out, covering about the same horizontal space as the 3 totes, and slightly less vertical space. On the right hand side of the stack lies one last black bin bag, around a quarter full of unknown contents (it’s clothes).
We have discussed it. The verdict: It’s an acceptable amount of clutter for the time and place. We offer you half-off coupon for a McPlant burger at a participating European McDonald’s near you in lieu of the violent justice you deserve.
You have been wronged.
Damnit, I never get the violent justice I deserve
I find they think it is a form of status. You have everything in control because everything looks good. That can kind of be the case in some situations, as cleanliness and hygiene can be beneficial. However, others take it overboard.
A tidy aesthetic is nice but folks take it to an extreme to the detriment of others. Sometimes it’s an internalized socialization where it really does bother someone if a place is “messy” (not 100% tidy-looking). At work, it’s usually purely about control and order, either as a marketing tool (matching an aesthetic of being organized and shiny and with busy employees) or as a way to impose additional responsibilities into workers so that they monitor all of this themselves and have no real downtime.
