The Contents of Your Desk

We've all seen it on TV, when a character leaves their job and not by choice, they're seen sadly carting an cardboard box containing "the contents of [your] desk." I've only done this once before, and it doesn't count because my last day came in the middle of an illness that left me bedridden and I had to come claim my stuff later when I was feeling better and happy about not working there any more.

I decided to clean out my desk today, to avoid the awkwardness of carrying all my crap home on my last day. There wasn't much, since we just moved into a new office* and I hadn't had time to accumulate the crap you accumulate. But, for what it's worth, here it is.

*The wisdom of moving to new offices 6 weeks before you find it necessary to lay off half the staff escapes me, but that's another story for another blog.

• a framed snapshot of my husband and I from when we first started dating
• another of our niece, a year out of date, which happens now that people don't get pictures printed very often anymore
• A "The Office" page-a-day calendar, I somehow got addicted to these. Even though they're not that funny, there's something comforting about marking the time by tearing off a page.
• Splenda, chai tea, popcorn, peanut butter, boxes of raisins, and a few stray teabags
• plastic cup and plastic bowl for my own personal highbrow lunch-at-my-desk tastes
• gum, lotion, contact solution, and a nail file, every girl's essentials

It's not much, just a few things to make me smile, a few things to keep me comfortable, and, in the end, a lot of things so I can have just the food I want the way I want it.

I thought I would be sad about this, but I just feel numb. That and the fact that most of what I cared about at work was what and how I was eating are good indications that this will be a positive move for me.

So what about you. If, God forbid, you had to empty out your desk today, what would it look like? What do your personal effects at work say about who you are?