As you know from yesterday’s post, I’m currently in office work overload.  And to reward you all for my recent a) crappy and sporadic post writing  and b) crappy blog visiting/commenting, I will share with you one of the most intimate things in my life.  My home away from home.  My sanctuary.  My “me time” spot.  No – not the bathroom . . . my office cubby.  The place where I spend 37.5 hours (give or take) a week.  Where I drop the cloak of “Mommy” and play the part of an office worker instead.  It’s generally a much less demanding role and they pay you to do it.

Amanda at It’s Blogworthy did an office tour the other week and I loved it.  So, with her permission, I’m totally copying borrowing her idea.

I work for a national telecommunications company in the department that does property management for all their cell site locations in several Provinces.  My job focuses on Lease Administration, so I ‘m on the computer all day.  I’ve been working for this company for a very long time.  Over 15 years.  It has changed hands a few times and grown dramatically since I started working there.  I’ve also had several very different positions along the way, which is probably why I haven’t gotten bored and left yet.  It is also where I met Willie – who also stills works here, although in a different building in a different part of town.

I drive about 40 minutes from the suburbs into the city to a complex that consist of 3 office towers with 18 stories each.  The buildings are all joined by an indoor walkway.  In the lobby/atrium there’s a coffee place, deli restaurant, Italian restaurant (my fav!) a convenience store, bank machine and a dry cleaners.  There’s also a shuttle bus that picks us lazy people up in the lobby and takes us on a 3-4 minute ride to the major shopping mall across the street.  Bad for the shopping habit, but great for getting errands done on your lunch hour.

Please – come in.  No, no, just leave your shoes on.  Mine’s the first one on the right.

First you’ll see my very cute and oh-so stylist coat, right beside 2 recent pics of my new niece.

Now if you’ll kindly turn around you’ll get the full view of what appears to be a messy desk, but in fact is actually very organized chaos.  I’ve taken the liberty of editing out some of the content of the papers on my wall because a) I don’t want corporate secrets to fall into the wrong hands b) I don’t want to loose my job c) my coworkers really don’t need a bunch of bloggers pulling crank calls on them and d) it’s all super boring stuff that you need not waste value blogging time trying to decipher.

But what you will notice is artwork from my boys, a few photos of same boys, a sweater that permanently resides on the back of my chair for those “chilly” mornings and some neatly lined up “sign here” sticky flags hanging from my shelf.  I’m not really collecting them, I just can’t bring myself to throw a perfectly good sticky flag in the garbage.  Hoarder in the making or environmentally conscious?  You decide.

Zooming in a little closer you will see the really important things . . . bottled water (which is refilled from the water cooler several times a day – all in the name of hydration), multi-vitamins (that a 10am automated appointment reminder tells me to take everyday, but that I often ignore), some hand sanitizer (needs no explanation) and some hand cream (which I rarely use and should probably be relegated to a drawer instead of being given prime desk space).

Let’s head into my top drawer, shall we?  Here we find a typical selection of pens, highlighters, bulldog clips and other general office supplies.  We also find two lip balms (LOVE the Aveeno one BTW) and for some reason . . . a collection of pennies.  Why?  Don’t know.

What you can’t see in the above picture is the very back of my drawer.  Where I hoard post it notes.  I don’t like to use them, I just like to collect them.  Particularly pretty coloured ones.  And right there – in front?  Most favourite pen EVER.  Which goes under lock and key every night just in case the Cleaners decided to get up to no good.

Which brings us to my favourite drawer . . . my SNACK drawer! (again with the hoarding – I’m sensing a theme)  I like to keep quick and reasonably healthy things at the ready.  It helps me fight off those demons that occasionally scream “go down to the lobby and buy a butter tart”.  No thanks Mr. Demon – I’ll just have that healthy and delicious Smartfood!

And there you have it folks!  My home away from home.

I’d love to see your workspace too.  In fact, I’ve started the “International Workspace Tour” in a box over at the right – so far there’s just Amanda and me.  If you do a tour, be sure to let me know so I can link up to you as well.  We’ll get to visit different places all over the globe without ever leaving our own desks and maybe find a potential new career along the way.

Would you/do you love or hate to work in a cubicle? Are you considering doing a workspace tour? Remember – workspaces aren’t just offices, they could be anywhere.  The more unusual your job is, the more interesting your workspace will be – especially if you’re Stripper.  Or an Astronaut.  Or you joined the Circus.