Bringing the Office Home With You

I’ve been thinking about things in the office that would be really useful to have at home. The mute button was one of the first things to come to mind. Great for allowing you to have a normal volume sidebar conversation without letting the speaker know that you are actively ignoring them. Also great for the times when saying an unkind word only in your head is really hard to do. Just think how nice it would be to have a mute button at home that would allow you to do these same things plus devise plans with your spouse in the presence of your children without them overhearing you. Brillant! Some other things I’d love to bring home from the office:

My own desk. It’s hard to share to a desk with an art project, your husband’s piles of papers, and a computer monitor that has been optimized for playing “Backyard Baseball.” And if the coffee spills on the desk, I really just want it to be my own fault.

Clean toilets. I would fish out just about anything out of my office toilet. If it were at home, it would either have to be something very special or have the potential to cause serious plumbing harm. It’s not that my toilets are filthy; it’s just that I would pause to consider which toilet to run to if I needed to puke.

IT support (on their happy days.) I could really use a good defrag on my home computer.

An unlimited supply of colored file folders. That way I could assign colors to specific family members or categories for EZ filing. My office “system” for color files didn’t quite turn out like I expected, but I’m confident I could do better with a second opportunity.

Printer cartridges I didn’t have to buy. I think it says something when printer ink is still more expensive than a full tank of gas and costs more per milliliter than Dom Perignon champagne. If HP is going to subsidize their business with the high retail cost of printer cartridges, it would be really handy to have my Company pay for them instead.

The peanut M&M “gumball machine dispenser.” It would be great to know that I’m always only 25 cents away from a chocolate fix …. but one that is moderated to only 10 guilt-free M&Ms.

Someone to clean out the refrigerator every Friday. Can you even imagine? No more soggy cucumbers in the vegetable drawer. No more skimming the layer of fuzz off the olive tapenade. No more expeditions to find that special something in your frig that you’re quite sure is a old pair of basketball shoes.

Speaking of office refrigerators, this note was posted our office refrigerator last week that I just had to share: “To the person who took our lunches: Thanks so much for taking our lunches today (one from Claim Jumper and a sandwich with a name on it.) You cost us additional money for lunch today and yesterday as the Claim Jumper is not cheap. If you cannot afford a lunch or figure out something rather than taking someone elses. [Editor’s note: the sentence actually ends right there.] If you forget go out & buy one like we had to do today.” Yes, this means that someone actually ate another person’s half eaten Claim Jumper lunch. I find this fascinating. Maybe I should bring my soggy cucumbers in to see what happens.

Outlook reminders for my children. Every day at 7pm, they would get a reminder titled, “Do you know where your socks are?” which would prompt them to stop what they are doing, find their dirty socks, and put them in the laundry.

Interior doors that serve a purpose. Need I say more.