Let's go clockwise starting at the top left with the Dasani water bottle. I drink a liter a day, a luxury I could never afford as a teacher with bathroom breaks so limited. I don't carry a bottle with me on the weekend, though, so I sometimes get headaches from being dehydrated.
Behind the water bottle you can kind of see a file organizer with red folders. Those are old. The procedures I follow now to set up my trainings are paper-free. The folders still get made, to hold copies of the contracts and invoices. But I don't deal with them anymore. The folders in my organizer are for customers that I've been trying to get scheduled for months. And months. They are not on my good side.
In front of the folder organizer is my mini Zen garden, complete with tiny pebbles and a rake. I play with it during trainings, because I could do them with my eyes closed, and need some sort of distraction so I don't go out of my mind with boredom.
To the right is a tube of Bath & Body Workds anti-bacterial hand lotion, in Brown Sugar and Fig. It's one of my favorite scents. I must always have lotion on my hands, just as I must always have lip balm on my lips.
In the way background (you know what I mean) you can barely make out my oil warmer. I got it at the flea market and I have it on most days to freshen the air. When I put new oil in, everyone always asks, "What's that great smell?" "Oh, that's just Melissa's office." That makes me happy. :-)
Next is my mini water fountain. It works with the hand pump--you can see the tube looping around and the squeezy thing sitting next to the rubber band. It's fun! Another distraction during trainings.
The pink and purple cube is a puzzle I bought at a toy store in Vermont, and put together at the airport waiting for my delayed flight (which ultimately was cancelled). It said "for ages 5 and up," but still took me about an hour to solve. (Should I have admitted that publicly?)
Then there's the neon Slinky, with a stress ball inside. Do you detect a pattern here? I love toys and need things to keep my hands busy while I deal with our mostly nice, but mostly slow customers.
Sitting inside the water fountain tubing is a "new" nickel, the kind with Jefferon's profile, and a buffalo on the back. I am nuts when it comes to coins. I pay with cash so infrequently these days, and when I do, I never give the exact amount just so that I can see what change I get. I need Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah from 2007. Seems harder to come by new quarters here in NC.
Body Shop almond oil nail & cuticle balm is to my fingertips what lotion is to my hands, and lip balm is to my lips. I must have it everyday, or my cuticles are so dry and ragged looking. Burt's Bees makes a lemon butter kind, which is also lovely.
The rubber band, paper clip, and battery hold no story. In fact, I should put them away right now.
Pens! I love pens. The black one I got on clearance at Target. It writes smoothly, but not as well as the blue Foray pen I was using until it recently ran out of ink. That was the best pen EVER. I prefer the retractable kind because then you don't have caps to lose. The pink pen was also on clearance at Target. Sometimes I am asked to proofread stuff, and it's easier to see the corrections when they are in brilliant pink than boring black.
The cell phone is for on-call. I take on-call shifts about 98% of the time. The only time I don't is when I'm traveling. I don't mind it, because I have no life anyway. I go straight home from work, and I'm not usually busy on the weekend, so hey, might as well get some money. (If I do step out, like to the grocery store or something, I have a laptop with an aircard so I can still get online.) I don't mind helping people, as long as they're polite. But we're getting into the time of year where I get woken up at 5am to launch calls, and that is more than a teensy bit irritating. The work cell phone is always charged and on, and I often forget to charge my own phone.
Lastly, you can see the edge of my headset base. I don't like to do trainings on speakerphone, because I think the audio quality is compromised, especially since the customer is usually on speakerphone. So I use a headset. Leaves my hands free for important business, like playing with my Slinky or my Zen garden. And some occasional typing.
So what's on YOUR desk?
No comments:
Post a Comment