SomersetClive’s Agony Aunt, Horace Monsoon is back with more sage advice for our readers. If you have a problem and need some help, send a letter or email to Horace and you can benefit from his years of wisdom.
Dear Horace,
I saw your recent reply to It’sARightMess, I thought your advice was spot on. I have a similar problem, which I hope you can help me with.
I’ve been in my job a little while longer than It’sARightMess, but have found it equally problematic and I’m also wondering if I’ve taken on too much.
I previously worked in a lower position than I’m in now, but I didn’t see this as a problem, because I knew that in my new job I would be working with people who have even less of a grasp of protocols than I do.
This turned out to be true – they have no idea what their own job entails so absolutely no clue as to what I do.
I have always prided myself in keeping a tidy desk, so you can imagine my abject horror when, on my first day, I turned up to find my desk strewn with paperwork.
It seems that no one else in the office has done any filing for a very long time. Whenever they had something that needed to be put away in a tidy methodical manner they dumped it on my desk instead.
I’ve been trying to sort it out, but some of the paperwork dates back to 2014 and there’s so much of it that there’s no filing cabinet or folder to put it in. I got round the problem by suggesting an office reorganisation and a new desk for me, and by pushing the paperwork desk into a corner and covering it with a sheet, no one has been any the wiser.
However, we have had two audits carried out in the short time I’ve been in my position, and both have made mention of ‘missing paperwork’.
Do I dare lift a corner of the sheet and peep underneath, with a view to sorting it out properly? I’m pretty sure that some of the other staff members have been adding more filing to the pile when they think I am not looking
Or should I continue using the excuse “It wasn’t me, guv.”?
Thank you
It’sMoreOfAMessThanYouThinkItIs
Dear It’sMoreOfAMessThanYouThinkItIs,
Thank you for your letter and for appreciating the time and effort that I put in to try to solve It’sARightMess’ problem. It wasn’t easy, I can tell you.
Yours is a lot simpler. I am assuming that your place of work has a staff car park. You need to pop to your local garage and purchase a can of petrol and a lighter.
Simply drag the offending desk into the car park, empty the can of petrol over it and set fire to a corner of the covering sheet. Wait about an hour and your problem will be solved.
You may want to briefly check the pile first, to see if the Building Insurance for the office is amongst the other bits of paper, just in case the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, but other than that I don’t foresee any issues.
I have found that deleting incriminating evidence is an excellent way to keep things covered up. As the saying goes ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
Good luck.
Horace.