Dirty Habits - 01/07/2008
"Walk into any company and the chances are you will find people whose desks are all very differently organised," says joint managing director of officebroker.com Andy Haywood, who gives no details of his own furniture habits.
Apparently, employees who have screen savers or calendars depicting tropical beaches tend to be "more hedonistic" while a neat and tidy desk is often a sign of a "highly conscientious individual -someone who is well-organised and prefers to focus on one thing at a time".
Conversely, a more spontaneously organised desk shows someone who is "good at multi tasking and can switch between different tasks quite quickly and easily and "tend to be flexible and creative in their approach to work".
A quick survey of Insider's editorial office suggests the latter predominates, assuming "spontaneously organised" means desks strewn with back copies of Exchange & Mart, sandwich crusts, crumpled up betting slips and dirty coffee cups of an indeterminate vintage.
