International Workspace Tour…

Cher at The Only Girl started this little phenomenon a while back and I have finally gotten my shit together enough to join in on the International Workspace Tour.  I’m a little late to the party, but I’ve finally made it!  So, come on in, pull up a chair and take a look around…

I think I’ve said before that I am an accountant and I work in a private family office.  My “clients” are siblings who work together in their family’s business.  Here in my office we handle all of the family’s personal financial matters…and really, anything else that needs to be done.  Our offices are on the top floor of a brownstone, which is a nice change from working in a typical NYC highrise building.  There’s no security checkpoint at the door, no turnstiles to walk through, no lines for elevators, no crowded sidewalks out front.  We are on a residential, tree-lined street one block away from Central Park.  The only people I see when I walk here in the mornings are the doormen of the neighboring buildings and the building manager of this building, who is usually outside, sweeping the sidewalk.  It’s a great location and I love the building. 

This is what you would see when you walk through the French doors leading to my office.  I probably should have taken a photo of those…they are pretty…but I forgot.  This is actually only one half of a larger office that I share with my colleague.  I was going to show you her side, but she’s got too much stuff on her desk and I didn’t know if she’d like me splashing it all over the internet!  So this is my desk.  My office at my former company was a ten by ten windowless room with flourescent lighting…as you can see from the ridiculously high ceiling and chandelier, this is a vast improvement.

I have this terrible habit of letting my adding machine tape pool on the floor.  I can’t see it from where I sit, so I usually have a small pile on the floor.  Yesterday, before I took this photo, someone else got sick of looking at it and tore it off for me.  Oops.  You can also see my little collection of hand sanitizer and lotion.  Since I pee a lot and sneeze a thousand times a day, I wash my hands constantly, they are really dry.  The lotion is a must.  There are three other bottles in the drawer.  And the sanitizer hardly ever gets used because I hate the way it makes my hands feel.  It’s there because during the H1N1 scare a while back, the company delivered huge boxes of it.  It comes in handy sometimes and the IT guy always uses it when he stops by. 

This is my view for most of the day.  On the left you can see my collection of pens, pencils, scissors, ruler, letter opener…and of course, a nail file.  The picture is Sadie’s first Christmas picture, when we gave her a bath first, then cut her nails and then put that Santa hat on her.  Man, she hated us that day!  You can see, right under the picture, my collection of Post-its.  Half of them have useless information on them, but I collect them there until one day I get fed up and throw them all out.  That day is coming.  The monkey was a gift from J.  J and I used to work together and when I gave my notice, he gave me the monkey…to remember him by.  A week later, we started dating.  Now I can’t forget him.  The little plate was a gift from my co-worker, who just returned from a trip to Greece where she had a fabulous time and I’m so jealous.  Of course, on the right is my iPod. 

It seems a common theme to the tours I’ve looked at so far is the sweater on the back of the chair…or in Jessalyn’s case, the sweater she was wearing…but as you can see, I’ve taken that a step further.  I have 4 sweaters on the back of my chair.  Because I like to match my outfit.  So there is a green and brown sweater to be worn with all brown clothing.  The grey and black sweater that goes with an all-black outfit…which is pretty typical.  The black sweater goes with outfits that are black and another color…such as the black dress with off-white flowers that I wore yesterday.  The blue sweater…well, that’s for the days when it’s unbearably freezing in here.  It’s warm and fleecy and keeps me nice and toasty.

This is my guest chair.  Of course, no one can ever sit there, because that’s where I keep my purse.  There are usually files on there as well.  However, today, the files are on the floor.  Also, you can see that I have two umbrellas under the chair.  I keep a stash in the office because I’ve gotten caught far too many times with no umbrella. 

This is a constant on my desk all day…the can of Diet Coke.  I drink it all day long.  There is a can chilling in the fridge and a stash of probably six in my drawer.  I have tried to switch to water, but no dice.  I’m too addicted to this stuff.  You can also see my “Stuff White People Like” calendar.  Hilarious. 

Proof that I have tried to switch to water. 

This is my snack stash.  We have two kinds of granola bars, oatmeal, cookies and cream of wheat.  Since I’m following NurtiSystem, this has become a community snack corner.  The bookends were a Christmas present from my boss last year.  At first I was like “great…thanks?” but they have actually come in handy.

This is the other side of my printer…my fabulous filing system.  Actually it’s just a corner that I don’t really have to look at all day where I throw things like credit card receipts, voided checks and folders I’ m know I may need some day, but don’t really know what to do with.  I clear it out about every six months.  You can see I also have another can of DC hidden over here and a random can of sliced peaches. 

Most importantly…this is my view of the terrace where the infamous Orland Bloom sighting happened.  It’s the window I gaze out of several times a day, hoping for just one more glimpse of his gorgeous face.  Interesting side note…I was at dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and she was asking if there were any new sightings and my brother made a face.  Apparently, he’s extremely jealous when my SIL talks about any other men…most specifically Robert Pattinson, but really anyone at all.  I think it’s funny that he’s jealous of some random guy that my SIL will never meet and will probably be too embarrassed to talk to even if she did. 

So there you have it.  Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you enjoyed your visit.  Now, when you read my blog, you can picture me sitting in my chair, with all my sweaters, typing away and glancing back every so often to check the balcony across the street. 

Make sure you drop in on Cher and check out the other workspace tours.

Hope everyone’s having a great week!