The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-02-11
BUSY MEMS DESK HABITS.
Some Who Surround Themselves With
Order-Others Who Don't.

+ From the Washington Post.
! Curious about mems desk habits" said
a man whose business takes him about
more or less into various sorts of offices.
Il was in an office yesterday where had
/ occasion to write something.
" Here sit down at my desk, says the
man. 7 guess can find a place there
And did find a place there after NOV
ing one or two things. but what was all
found-a place just big enough to write
in, and that square i'll the middle of the
desk.
This was a flat-top desk, and, except
for that small. bare spot in the middle. it
was just covered with papers and things
of every description, and these not fold
ed or stacked or set ND about In any or
derby manner. but all apparently in the
utmost confusion.
1.-THE desk looked as though it's owner
when he had got through with a docu-
ment or bill had just pushed it back from
the bare spot on the desk. And so he had
stuff piled up on his desk overlapping and
j lying around any way all around the top
of his desk and actually sloping down
from all around from that bare spot like
a little fiat valley, where he wrote in the
center at the front
And this was a business man, too. and
moreover, as I was told, man who has
accumulated comfortable property In
the persuit of his business. And | found
him In the dealings I had with him not
only personal amiabe in all things, as
indicated by his CHEEKY call to use his
desk, but fair and exact in mis- business
ways.
How he ever did business with his desk
Uttered up in that way how he ever
found anything there that he wanted, or
how he ever remembered anything ] dom
see but as far as I know he never forgot
anything that was important.
ut made me think of something a min
lister said to me once. was saying TO
this minister, talking about preaching ex-
temporaneously, that should thlnk when
a man got up in the pulpit to preach.
without any notes that he'd be apt to for
get some of the things he wanted to say
and the minister said that sometimes you
might forget things In that way out
then he recalled what an experienced OLD
clergyman had said to him, In reply 10
the same suggestion from himself "hich
was to the effect that the things the
preacher forgot to say were usually the
things not worth remembering.
And maybe it was so about the for
gotten things in the pile of papers on that
desk.
But he want the only man have met
who kept his desk apparently III the
greatest disorder, but was nevertheless
successful. and then / nave hhoNi ft~i'
ty of men who went so far the other way
and who would have tit unless theY
could keep everything ON their desk just
so. A..
1.-The inkstand must be here ana the
stamp box here. and the pen rack mere
all lust so. and kept So and with no NJ
fer anywhere with everything free anu
clear and in order. And | have known
men who couldn't write unless they hau
their paper square just right ana an
that: precise men, who must nave every
thing lust so before they could get 10
work: all the very opposite OF the man
Win the Uttered desk, who has at leasl
in his favor the fact that he doesh Wor-
~, bi,nself over trifles. but keeps on
serene through it all nh,
"And while | have known men WIZ
must have everything just SO peat apou'
their desks, fresh blotters ana cream lnN-
stands and all that have known otnel
MON who didn't care If their desks were
a food thick with dust, and VINO only ASH
ed that their things should not be n'oveu
or shifted about just simply ana oiiiS
that their desks should be let alone
LAS a matter of fact there is III these
DAVIS less and less disorder IN business
methods and more and more system
This is an age of system"