Little Change, Big Difference

In the Org. Behavior class I took in grad school, I learned that non-threatening aesthetic change imposed upon one's workplace has been documented to increase worker productivity.

Take my office, for example. I have quite a nice one, containing a mahogany L-shaped desk with matching bookcase and upholstered chairs. It's narrow but long (that's what she said :X), and on the wall above my desk I have a blue- and pale yellow-beribboned bulletin board that I made. I have other goodies on my desk, like a digital LCD picture frame, a sky-blue blown-glass lamp, a pale yellow hand-thrown stoneware bowl and an inlaid wooden pencil case I bought in Sorrento, Italy. On the walls, I have a clock and some Japanese woodblock prints and Japanese art paper cards in frames. Huh. I think of my office as being rather spartan, but after rereading that little list, I'm unsure. I'm looking at the books I have handy in my bookcase (under a little bronze statuette of a flutist):

- Saving the World, James Patterson (I was desperate and went to CVS - don't judge!)
- Myst: The Book of Ti'ana, Rand Miller
- Crystal Line, Anne McCaffrey
- The Eagle's Gift, Carlos Castaneda
- Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
- The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart

I digress. Anyway, yesterday afternoon after attending a meeting at which I was delegated additional complex, ongoing responsibilities, I came back to my office and thought, "This place needs a change. How can I change it?" I stole my buddy MP from his cubicle and asked him if he could lift my desk, which looks as permanent as a boulder and just as heavy. He posed a couple times, expelled his best gymrat grunt and rolled up his sleeves. We turned my desk around 90 degrees so that I face my message board and my right side is toward the door. By that time of day, after waking up at 5:15 and eating soup for lunch, I found myself riding the dubious line between sane/unsane, as well as overly-caffeineted-yet-somehow-sleepy. I think I made some foolish "with our powers combined" joke coupled with my best uber-activist superhero impression. It would have sent anybody running from the room like Jesper from a junebug.

It's like a whole new office! I vaccuumed and dusted and rearranged everything; the way the desk is now makes the space feel about a third bigger. I even brought in a little rarely-used glass vase that I found in my cupboard this morning.

A little change, but a big difference.