A bit for you today regarding how my mind works, as if you might find this topic fascinating…

As I have slightly lamented in this particular column, I have recently moved from a Nice, Big, Windowed Office into a less nice, smaller, windowless office. As I have said, I must say again: I am pleased as hell to have an office at all, or, for that matter, to even have a job and the wits with which to perform it reasonably well.

::kicking dirt:: I still miss my damned window, though.

Anyway. When I was in my bigger office, and after I inherited the additional responsibilities as Webmaster for my organization, I had to do some detective work, which meant I had to spend some time cleaning out the office belonging to the previous Webmaster. (I didn’t ogle anything personal, bro’. Don’t fuss.)

Now, personally, I’m not sure how this lad ever got anything done. He was buried in paper. Piles of it, reams of it, acres of it, everywhere could find it, there was paper. I think he had the entire Webmonkey Cold Fusion tutorial printed out twice (it’s several hundred pages long). So, I pitched about half of it, kept the receipts and some of the stuff that looked like it would contain vital information, and I dumped those papers onto an empty tabletop in my nice, roomy office. As I had time, I would sort through the mess of papers, pull out the 5 percent of what was worth keeping, and recycle the rest. Despite my best efforts, deadlines were my real priority, and I didn’t mitigate but perhaps a third of the pile.

Of course…in my new office, there’s no tabletop. No room for one.

So all that pile of stuff that I haven’t gone through, it’s on the floor in front of my desk.

Oh, I could put this pile in the drawer of the filing credenza. There’s enough room there, and it would remove this unsightly mess.

If I do that, though, what will be my incentive to actually clean the mess up? If it’s out of sight, it will be out of mind, and it will continue to be an unmanageable stack of obsolete paper. If I leave it where it is now, and I get enough “tsk tsk” noises clucked at me, I will have a grand incentive to actually send pounds and pounds of this useless paper packing.

Do I think too hard?

My senior year in college, I worked as in intern in Washington, D.C. No, not one of those kinds of internships. I spent two days a week at a little media group that tended to work with leftish non-profits, or not-for-profits, or whatever you call ’em. When I worked there, I formed one notion of what I wanted to achieve after college: A job in Washington, D.C., an office with a big window, and a reasonably comfortable life. I was essentially shooting for a job as a newsletter editor and a nice place to live in Northern Virginia.

You know what? For awhile, I had all of that. Today, though, I lost the office.

I now reside from nine to five in a smaller, danker office without a window. And…um…well, there’s this STENCH…

Yes, friends, life just keeps getting better and better. And better. (‘Sokay, ya’ll. I got my eyes on the prize. I’ll get there someday.)