Desks

My co-worker, Andrew and I have been planning on changing desks for a little while now. Two of the cubicles closer to the front of our office opened up in the last few months and we planned on occupying them. As of last week, he and I were sharing one cubicle. Well... sort of. I still had plenty of room as you can tell in the pic below, but I was still crammed in a corner.

We held off for a little bit since we knew our office was going to get brand new carpeting soon. Why move all of our equipment when we knew we were just going to have to do it again real soon, you know? Last Thursday is when they finally replaced it, so we made the move. I now have more space than before and a little more privacy, too. Not that I'm doing anything super secretive. >.>

This got me thinking about desks and our work areas. I think these places can speak volumes about the owner. Sometimes, I can gather all the information I need to form an idea of what a person's life is like just by their desk, work area, office, or even computer. I'm really intrigued by this whole concept and love looking at pictures of desks.

If someone has Sundance posters up on their walls, I can assume they enjoy indie movies. If someone has a mirror on their desk, I can assume they care about how they look. If someone decorates their work area with a lot of purple, I can assume... um... that they like the color purple. Obviously you don't truly know someone until you talk to them, but seeing these things on a desk or in an office is a great start. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had gone long at work because I simply mentioned a picture or little figure at someone's desk.

That's not to say that everybody's desk has stuff on it. Sometimes they are quite bare, but that might also say a lot about someone's personality. In celebration of getting to set up my new office (which I will display at the end of this post) I wanted to see how other people decorated their desks at work. I asked all of my friends to send me a picture of their desk and/or office and I got a pretty good response. Let's just take a look and maybe do a tiny bit of analyzing.

This is Patrick's desk. He's in the Air Force as you might see a Staff Sergeant rank insignia hanging on the cubicle wall. I can assume that he is of Senior Airmen rank because some people like to put the next rank up as motivation to work hard for that goal. Another thing that helps me realize he's in the Air Force is the green bars on his monitor displays. That means he's on an unclassified network. He definitely wouldn't be sending this to me if he were on anything different. Is that a paper machet cactus? That's funny. And I think that laptop he has docked is an HP... maybe an EliteBook... 8530w? 100 calorie pretzel packs and Quaker rice crackers... he likes to eat somewhat healthy? I say "somewhat" because I see a Red Bull. Mmmm... we all need some extra caffeine every now and then.

This is Cara's desk. She works with me at Microsoft Studios, though you could have figured that out from the projects written on the whiteboard in the back. Fairly small desk space, but she uses it well. Lots of Post-Its on her monitor for reminders.

This is Christy's desk. Nice cube. Pretty well-organized. She must be a tidy person. Lots of Post-Its and important papers hung up on the walls. No clutter. Very professional looking. I like it. Is that a Monster energy drink I spy? Yum.

This is my cousin Shannon's desk. Well, I'm guessing she shares it since its a drive-thru counter at a bank. Is that a personal MacBook I see there? She must be studying. Wait a minute... no, nevermind. I see a fashion magazine there, too. =P

My friend Ike works from home. Always like tri monitor set up. Two laptops seem to be connected. The Lenovo must be the one doing the dual display since it's on a docking station. Love the speaker stands. Classy. I'm not going to ask about the stain on the chair.

This is another co-worker's desk. Jesse works in what we call The Pit at Microsoft Studios. It's where a lot of the gear for the stages is stored. He sits a little higher up as you can tell by the height of the door in the background. I built that huge Dell desktop tower PC for him that runs great (or, at least it should). I see he is enjoying a Starbucks and has some work gloves. He must have the carry a lot of stuff. A DSLR sitting on top of the computer, though I don't know what brand/model. And I can't tell what's on his desktop background. Anime?

This is my friend Jason's desk at AMC Theatres. Might have caught him after just eating lunch or something. Scanner and printer behind him. I like having my own printer, too, instead of using a shared one. Lots of tools around his desk. Looks like release schedules on the cork board behind the chair. Picture of his son James on his desktop background. Is that Windows XP? Oy. Makes up for it with the Social Network mouse pad.

Here's Jason's wife, Molly's desk. Lucky! She has a window! I would love to have a window at my desk. I think it says "Kent School District" on her laptop. Molly is a teacher if you haven't figured that out by now. Pictures of Jamesie in the background.

This is my friend Sam's desk. Nice wide space, but I dislike the low cubicle walls. Some people might like it, but I'd rather have more privacy. Can you tell where she works just from this picture? Tough one. You'd probably have to be familiar with the company. The clue is on the bag on the left. 30, with a clock in the zero. It's all about the 30 Hour Famine, which is an event led by non-profit child sponsorship organization, World Vision. Tiny desktop PCs. Not small enough to be thin clients. I would be shocked if they're running anything higher than Windows XP. The headset hanging on the monitor should be a great indicator of what Sam does. Yep, she works in a call center.

This is my friend Jessica's desk. Papers, papers everywhere. She must be busy. I like the mini fan. Dual monitoring it up! Nice. More Windows XP though!

Old friend from high school sent me this one. I don't think I can tell where Kristine works or what she does from this picture. Dual monitors and... wait... what is this I see? Windows 7! Yaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy! This shot is a little blurry, so I can't tell what's under her monitors. Snoopy on the right there. Are those two laptops stacked on top of each other? Or is that a docking station? Can't tell.

This is my friend Joel's desk. Simple, yet stylish. Are the desk and lamp from IKEA? MacBook. Like it. External backup drive on the left. Very important to do. I try and backup my computer every two weeks. Really important to me that I save my photos. Ah, the ESV Study Bible and church and Jesus-related reading. I think it's safe to say that Joel is a pastor. =)

Here is Danny Choo's desk. Danny is someone that I don't personally know, but I've spoken to him a couple times and I follow his blog a lot. He lives in Japan and is a total otaku. Let's see... MacBook (with a messy desktop), Mac Pro, and I believe an iPad on the window. He must like Apple products. I think the clear desk is neat, but don't care for the things holding it up. Looks like something you would find in a workshop. Like I said, Danny is an otaku, so there's lots of anime figures and pictures around his office. Personally, I don't like too many figures; I'm quite content with just my one. He also has dolls standing on his desk. Definitely not a fan of those. I guess that's where I draw the line. ^^;

So, I guess I'll present to you my new office cubicle now.

A big improvement, in my opinion. I love all the desk space. I could even use more, but it'll do for now. There are still some things I'm going to change though. Eventually I'm going to get rid of one of the shelves hanging up on the wall. Then I'm going to get rid of the clunky CRT television and hang a 48-55" LCD HDTV up on the wall where we can monitor network traffic and ESPN. Then I can move my printer over against the wall and use the extra space for more laptop building area. Or maybe stick a Mac there.

I also rock the dual monitors, but I put one monitor vertical. I used to have one vertical monitor when I was in the Air Force all the time for e-mail. I find it to be a much more efficient way to sort, read, and find messages. I also like it for working on Excel spreadsheets. Left monitor is used for everything else like web surfing, taking notes, remote desktop, instant messaging, and music. I like having the light shining on the walls behind my monitors. Adds a subtle vignette. Laptop with docking station, IP phone, and gigabit switch to the right.

View from sitting in my chair. I think it would be relatively clear to someone that didn't know me that I like anime. Although I'm not overboard like Danny Choo is, I do have Yui-chan on the right and a young Sawa-chan on my desktop background. She can be funny at times, but I'm honestly not too big of a fan of hers. I just think the wallpaper looks good. Lots of notepads to my left. I don't really use them for reminders. Got OneNote for that. They're more for quick things that I can't memorize like license keys or IP addresses.

Stuff on my cube wall behind me. Got my autographed Sounders banner, some funny comics, the CIE 1931 color space diagram, and my display calibration certificate.

The long empty table to my left might seem like wasted space, but it's actually where I build out laptops. Underneath, I screwed in a power strip and gigabit switch so I can build things out nearby without cluttering my work area. I can't stand cables and stuff running all over my desk.

Well, that about does it. I'll keep you updated if I make any additional major changes. Thanks to all the people who sent me a photo. Tell me what you think and if I never got a picture of your desk, feel free to post and share in the comments. Maybe I'll revisit this post in a couple years and see where we're all at.