Desk The Halls

Several years ago, I work for an organization that runs an annual holiday decorating competition between departments.

Two departments basically take turns winning every year. A few of their staffers go absolutely overboard, adding hundreds of dollars of their own money on top of the department budget. Their setups are huge, elaborate, and probably take days to complete. The photos look great, but it’s excessive, I estimate at least $500 in decorations, not counting staff hours.

That year, my department has its own new office space. In previous years, we’d been stuck behind another department where some people didn’t even know we existed. Now we’re on the ground floor with a nice office, and my executive director wants to show off.

Boss: “[My Name], since you’ll be in the office this weekend, you can make a good start on decorating the office for the competition.”

Me: “I will be in the office, but I’ll be working on those projects. Remember, we need to be in a good place with them before the New Year.”

Boss: “Well, no reason you can’t do both. Spend a few hours decorating and the rest working.”

I had only planned to be in the office four to five hours anyway. “A few hours decorating” would leave me almost no time for the projects.

Me: “I’d really like to focus on the projects. I’m also not much of a decorator.”

True. I’ve moved fourteen times in seventeen years, which killed my desire to decorate. I’m a tomboy, not very feminine in dress or presentation, which I think always bothered my boss. And honestly, I’m just not good at decorating. 

Boss: “Are you refusing to help your coworkers with this?”

Note: “Refusing to help your coworkers” is her go-to phrase whenever anyone pushes back. She came from the business world into a different industry, and her “business ideas” often don’t fit.

Me: “Nope. I’ll try to spend some time decorating, then.”

That weekend, I stop at a dollar store and buy several rolls of wrapping paper on the department credit card. When I get into the office, I spend two to three hours wrapping everything in sight: desks, filing cabinets, bookshelves, end tables. 

Basically, I make the office unusable. If someone wants to use their desk or open a filing cabinet, they have to rip through the “decorations” and ruin them.

The result? Our office has an extremely easy week leading up to the holiday. Nobody can access their files, desks, or bookshelves. Productivity drops to zero.

We don’t even place in the competition.

And the best part? The next month, I hear my boss got scolded by HER boss because we were behind on the projects.