Next to my cubicle at work is an empty cubicle. Rather, it used to be empty. Soon after the girl who worked there quit, more than a year ago, the cubicle progressed through the stages of white-collar clear-cutting. First, someone purloined the stapler, maybe because it was slightly fancier than their own or maybe they just wanted a backup. Then the electric pencil sharpener disappeared, because, hey, electric pencil sharpeners are nice, and no one was using this one, sitting there in an empty cubicle. The power strip was next to go, followed by various pens and pushpins and trays. At last, someone wheeled away the chair, replacing it with their own brokedown model. Picked clean of accouterments, the empty cubicle now was the loneliest cubicle. If there happened to be wind on the 17th floor, it would have whistled through this cubicle with melancholy as a tumbleweed trundled by.
Then, as in New York at large and in particular at a media company focused on commercial real estate, people recognized space was at a premium. So they started dumping their junk in the empty cubicle. Half a dozen busted chairs collected in there and now spill out of the entrance. Next arrived a sprawl of old newspapers, empty three-ring binders, Bankers Boxes of anonymous paperwork from the late ’90s, outdated desk calendars and other random crap. I’ve taken to calling it New Fresh Kills and I’m pretty sure I saw a homeless guy sleeping in there the other day.
The company at which I work is just large enough that there was a chance no one would have noticed this pileup and it would have continued attracting trash until it began emitting methane. But it’s located directly across from the glass-doored conference room, so most everyone sees it on a regular basis, including, much to the consternation of the higher-ups, besuited out-of-office visitors to the conference room. I’ve heard that the big boss will be sending out a Clean Office Initiative memo very soon, written in that corporate style of “we all need to keep a clean work area” and “thank you in advance for your participation,” because as much as he wants to, he can’t just blurt out “somebody fucking clean the garbage cubicle.” But seeing as how its donors have been largely anonymous, I wonder who will be responsible for this task?