Field Notice on Desk Migration Ritual
An office that has been closed for ten months is reopening in a limited capacity, and a person is reconsidering whether the things they left on their desk in March 2020 are still their things.
Field Notice on Desk Migration Ritual Incident Report: Office Return Preparation, Limited Capacity Phase
Background
The office has been closed since March 13, 2020. An email was sent on January 22, 2021 announcing a limited return to office, at 30% capacity, for employees who choose to come in. The email used the phrase "as we begin our journey back to the office," which is a spatial metaphor for a process that is primarily administrative.
The email prompted a recollection of what was left on the desk in March 2020.
Inventory of Known Items
A pair of headphones, wired, that were the backup pair before wireless headphones became the primary. A coffee mug with a company logo from an event in 2018. Several sticky notes with information that was urgent in March 2020 and has since been resolved, superseded, or forgotten. A laptop stand. A small cactus that was alive as of March 13, 2020, and whose status is now unknown.
The desk held objects that were important enough to leave at the office but not important enough to collect during the ten months the office was technically accessible for retrieval.
Finding 1: The Cactus Question
The cactus requires water every two to three weeks. The office has been closed but not sealed. The facilities team has been present throughout. Whether the facilities team watered a small cactus on a random desk in an empty office is an empirical question with no available answer until the office reopens.
The cactus is either alive or it is not. Both outcomes have been accepted.
Finding 2: The Hot-Desking Transition
A hot-desking policy has been announced for the return. The desk that held these objects for three years is no longer assigned, which is not a loss the organization has a procedure for and is not the kind of loss that warrants a procedure. The objects will be in a box. The box will be labeled.
In the second year of remote work, the assigned desk has been replaced in function by a specific chair at a kitchen table, a position near a window for good meeting light, and a charger that is in a location known only to the person who put it there.
Finding 3: The Return Logistics
The office return requires registering the visit through a booking system. Capacity is limited to twelve people per floor. The booking system opened Monday and was full by Tuesday, which suggests that either many people want to return or many people want to collect their things and return to working from home.
Both motivations produce the same calendar entry.
Current Status
A slot has been booked for February 4th. The cactus's status will be determined then. The headphones will be brought home. The sticky notes will be reviewed and discarded. The coffee mug will come home.
The desk will be empty. The next person to use it will not know what was there.