Organizationally Challenged
STEVE AND I are well matched in many ways. We laugh at the same jokes, like the same books, and have similar philosophies of life. One major difference, however, is that Steve is highly organized and is a very methodical thinker, and I am neither.
In today’s politically correct nomenclature, I call myself ‘Organizationally Challenged.’ In my world, a certain amount of clutter works. Steve, the anti-clutter, and others like him don’t understand.
When I first entered the business world, I devised a filing system where I kept all the files I was working on stacked on my desk, with the most urgent tasks on top. I am an out-of-sight, out-of-mind person, so I was afraid that if I filed anything away I would forget to complete my task. Also, my filing system was horrendous and inconsistent, so I rightly assumed that once filed I might never figure out where I put things.
I filed things based on what I was thinking that day. If I was working on product training for say, 800 Service, one of my products, I might file it under T for training or E for eight hundred or the number 8. Once a year, I would take a day to go through my files and I was always amazed at what I found where. This was my dirty little secret. I got so much done (due to my frenzied activity level) that most people assumed I had it together.
Early in my career, I had a boss who was very organized. Every day, before he left the office, he’d completely clear his desk, leaving only his phone and his calendar. He had a real problem with my style and was constantly after me to clear things off. I tried to explain that it was really better for everyone if I just left things out. But he insisted, it just wasn’t right.
One morning, I arrived at work to a note taped to my chair (or else I would never have found it) reading, “A disorganized desk is the sign of a disorganized mind.” I knew right away who left that homily. After my boss had packed up and cleared out that evening, I left him a note of my own. “If a disorganized desk is the sign of a disorganized mind, than an empty desk must be the sign of an empty mind. Which is worse?” As you can see, corporate politics were also not my strong suit.
My personal life was the same. When Steve and I first started living together, my lack of organization was the hardest adjustment for him. He looked in my refrigerator and couldn’t see any method to its arrangement due to the fact that there wasn’t any. Because he couldn’t live that way, he would take everything out and put the cheeses together and the yogurts together and all the beverages on the same shelf. He would patiently explain why putting this there made sense and I would see the beauty of his plan. He was right. I was able to glance in and see what we needed. I didn’t have to rummage through everything to find the jelly, preventing us from ending up with six strawberry jellies because I couldn’t find the five jars that were in there, somewhere.
But, reverting to type, I would put things back in a haphazard way and the refrigerator would return to its former state. I tried to explain to Steve that one of the laws of thermodynamics was entropy, which stated that everything in life eventually breaks down into disorder. In my best Star Trek Scotty Scottish brogue, I cried, “Captain, you can’t change the laws of physics!” Steve didn’t buy it.
My bill paying wasn’t any better. I left bills scattered about, and then I’d forget where.
One day, vowing to change my ways, I bought myself a small filing cabinet. I will create a place for everything, I promised, and put everything in its place. I started with a few files: bills to be paid, paid bills, bank statements. Things quickly got out of hand. In a hurry, I’d file my bank statements and bills unopened, intending to get to them later, but forgetting. I created new files for old subjects and ended up with unpaid bills under ‘U’ and, also, bills to be paid under ‘B.’ When I missed deadlines and received second notices for unpaid bills, I filed them under ‘S.’
When Steve got wind of my so-called system, he grabbed a stack of my unopened bank statements, waved them in front of me and, wide-eyed and disbelieving, screamed, “How do you live? HOW–DO–YOU - LIVE?”
Steve has taken over our finances ever since.
My best friend, Jackie, is even more organized than Steve. She has her cereal cabinet alphabetized. She has decorative boxes stacked in her laundry room, each labeled with its contents: mittens, mitten clips, swim goggles, shoe polish. Every time she starts a project she creates a binder with labeled sections for each component of the task. When she has a dinner party, she lays the serving dishes out the night before and places labels in each indicating their future contents.
Don’t get me wrong, I am in awe of her. I just hate it when we go there. Steve looks lovingly at her logical organization. Then, the two of them debate, for hours, the relative organizational merit of boxes over hooks over wire shelving.
I sometimes wonder if I am not unconsciously surrounding myself with this type of person to compensate for my deficiency. I also wonder why they keep me around.
I have, unfortunately, passed my personality trait on to my son, Martin. He is very clever, but he loses everything. His backpack is a disaster and he is constantly misplacing his homework. I angrily lecture him on responsibility, and then remember similar lectures aimed at me, and ease up on him.
We all have our challenges. I work on being more orderly and Steve continues to pick up the dropped pieces and put them in their place. He is the yang to my yin; my cosmic balancing half. He claims he wants me to change, but, really, what fun would that be?