Clear desk policy

[MK Shrimper]

Came in the morning to find all my work papers I left last night, plus my personal photo of me & Mrs MK dumped on my chair in what is apparantly a "clear desk policy"...i.e making sure your desk is clear after hours. Seeing as half of the office has gone home or is going home when I leave and the office is empty at night, what is the ****ing point?

Anyone else have to suffer this pedantic petty rule set by power crazed little Hitlers?

 

[Davros]

i wish my desk was clear once in a while :sad:

 

[Firestorm]

The clear desk policy was "invented" during the early 90's during the IRA Bombing campaign as a part of disaster recovery, the idea originally being that work related documents would be shut away overnight so that should there be a blast, which does not destroy the building but blows the windows out , the papers remain intact.
There was a story that the old CU building (now Aviva) in St Marys Axe had a load of it windows blown out by the Baltic exchange bomb, the CU Chairman came down to survey the mess and there, sitting proudly on top of piles and papers blown from the building, was his payroll details.

These days I can't understand the clear desk policies at all, in our place you end up shifting the pending trays etc into a shelf unit behind your desk overnight .
Occasionally the cleaners comment about being unable to clean the desks properly due to stuff all over them, but otherwise its pointless, although it does mean that stuff gets filed a bit more often

 

[MK Shrimper]

Occasionally the cleaners comment about being unable to clean the desks properly due to stuff all over them, but otherwise its pointless, although it does mean that stuff gets filed a bit more often

Here's the rub: There are no cleaners in the building overnight. They bother you during the day, especially coming around with the very loud vacuum cleaner when you're on the phone.

 

[osymandus]

Theres a left over myth that a tidy desk is a tidy organised mind . It is a myth

 

[EastStandBlue]

No, but I did have a row with the cleaner here the other day... I left three business cards on my desk that I picked up from some convention in November that I needed to complete a counter-terrorism feature that I'm working on. The cleaner threw them all away, and also managed to bin five PO slips from the editors desk that were meant to be authorised. Haven't seen him since.

 

[Uncle Leo]

No such policy here, but MK mentioning that he had a photo of himself and his lovely wife on his desk (no problem with that) reminded me of a woman who used to work here who had as her PC dekstop wallpaper a big picture of herself. Now that's just wrong. She was no looker either.

 

[EastStandBlue]

No such policy here, but MK mentioning that he had a photo of himself and his lovely wife on his desk (no problem with that) reminded me of a woman who used to work here who had as her PC dekstop wallpaper a big picture of herself. Now that's just wrong. She was no looker either.

There's a woman here who works in Design who uses two screens, both wallpapers are pictures of herself... Funnily enough, she's also hideous.

 

[steveo]

A mate of mine works for a cleaning company in the city. They have so many problems with people complaining that cleaners have moved stuff on people’s desks, so they try and operate a policy that if you don’t have a clear desk, it doesn’t get cleaned. If you want your desk cleaned, leave it clear.
Also, if you want cleaners to work at night you need to pay more so if the firm has daytime cleaners, you cant really blame them for doing the cleaning in the day, and if they don’t turn their vacuum cleaners on, they wont be able to clean properly.
Typical me, sticking up for the workers.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

My work introduced a clear desk policy a couple of months ago and I was the first person to fall foul of it. We were told that anyone with documents left out when people carried out a sweep of the building at night would receive a warning.

I wouldn't have minded so much but I was sat at my desk working on the documents at the time when they handed me the warning.

The main reason clear desk policies are becoming more popular, although they won't necessarily admit it, is that it paves the way for hot-desking. Companies are trying to establish working practices which will enable them to cut down on the number of desks they need to have. This saves space and therefore rent as well as making it easier to move employees from central London locations to backwaters like Milton Keynes.

 

[steveo]

Also, the prices in the cleaning industry have been hacked to pieces. You might get a large cleaning firm (Company A) that use 20 people to clean an office. The cleaning contract goes to tender and another cleaning firm (Company B) comes in with a cheaper price and wins the contract. The cleaners are already working for minimum wage so Company B can’t save money on wages, so they either take a smaller profit, which has already been hacked to the bone, or reduce the number of cleaners, which means the job doesn’t get done as well.
Company B don’t have enough staff to do the job, and Company A have now got too many staff, so the cleaners simply all leave company A and start working for company B.
Now with new bosses, the cleaners have to work equally or more hard as before so Mrs Muggins with her hoover, probably doesn’t have time to wait for you to finish your phone call before getting her hoover out.

 

[RobM]

Theres a left over myth that a tidy desk is a tidy organised mind . It is a myth

...an empty desk therefore...!

 

[GrumpyBlue]

i wish my desk was clear once in a while :sad:

Yes Me too

 

[canveyshrimper]

If we employed a clear desk policy it would take my boss about 3 hours every day to clear his.

 

[chadded]

What was on MK's Desk in the first place- printouts of SZ and some train timetables?

 

[davewebbsbrain]

We have a clear desk policy but as I work in I.T we seem to be exempt. My desk is a right mess, but an organized mess.

 

[canveyshrimper]

What was on MK's Desk in the first place- printouts of SZ and some train timetables?

An Eggheads info pack and a flowery shirt.

 

[ldnfatso]

Anyone else have to suffer this pedantic petty rule set by power crazed little Hitlers?

Coming from the one of the most militant people on here! lol!

Trouble is, you are too busy striking to tidy your desk up!

 

[Davros]

RMT to strike over clear desk policy.

"I'll have what i like on my farking desk, all me Millwall mugs and mousemat and sh*t. I dont give a diddly w@nk about the customers, 'aving a messy desk is a mans right, and for this, we will strike for 3 days and nights, and let that be a lesson" said union leader Bob Crow

 

[Mad Cyril]

I'd rather have a clear desk policy than a clear your desk and **** off policy.