Okay, so here’s the deal. I work for this professor. I was originally hired to do basic office tasks, but they quickly realized that I have more than half a brain and I’ve been given a promotion of sorts.

One of my current duties is to get her organized. Not really home organization, per se, but she spends 12-14 hours a day in the office, so I’m hoping it counts. Basically, I’m supposed to help her get her office clean, which is a much larger task than it probably sounds. Her office is about 15 x 15, and every horizontal surface is COVERED in a swath of paper, files, articles, books, et cetera at least a foot deep. Including the floor. And also part of the floor outside her office. The bookshelves are full, her desk is covered, the file cabinets are a mess, and in order to get from the door to her desk you have to hop between several small, foot-size spots that somehow are paper-free. There’s a joke in our office that the only way the office will ever get clean is with a can of lighter fluid and a match…it’s quite frightening, frankly.

The problem is, I can’t just go in and organize everything myself, because she knows where EVERYTHING is. How she keeps it all straight is beyond (superorganized) me, but it seems to work for her. The problem is, no one else can find anything, and she travels frequently and we often need files from her office. It’s also a huge violation of fire code; aside from being a citation waiting to happen, it really is potentially dangerous. So I guess my question is this — where do I start? How do I go about tackling this enormous task? Help me, please.

Drowning in a sea of paper

Dear Drowning,

Dude, I feel you. For a while, I worked for an author who had an incredibly arcane (and, to me, incomprehensible) filing system; it was hell getting anything put away.

Unfortunately, there isn’t really going to be a way for you to organize your boss’s office independent of her involvement. If she has a system (even if it’s not clear to you), you can’t overhaul everything without her being there to go through everything and tell you what’s okay to recycle, and what she needs to keep.

However, you can start without her. Even if you don’t know exactly what her filing “method” is, you probably have a general idea of what categories her stuff is filed in: for example, ongoing research projects; teaching materials and grading; university administrative stuff; whatever. You can come up with an organizing plan for her stuff — like a map of her office with your proposed filing system marked on each cabinet, and/or a list of storage containers you think she needs (cabinets, in/out baskets, bankers’ boxes for removing stuff from her office that she doesn’t need at hand). Then when you have a chance, sit down with her and go through your plan. She can tell you whether your filing system needs to be expanded to include other broad categories of stuff. But make it clear that she’ll have to set aside at least one whole day to be with you in the office, going through everything and advising you as to what needs to be kept, and where, and getting rid of everything she possibly can.

As well, you can help her help you organize her stuff by having her kind of mentally divide the contents of her office into three categories (and this is true of any organizing plan, by the way):

1. Stuff you need at hand

2. Stuff you need to be able to reach easily, but don’t use every day

3. Stuff you need to keep in long-term storage, but that you barely ever touch

In an office, things in the first category would include extra pens, stapler, course syllabi, printer paper, and whatnot. In the second category would be older course materials she might check for reference purposes, university memos and the like that she has to keep abreast of, frequently used books, and things of that sort. The third category is more nebulous — in a home office, it would be things like really old tax returns; basically, anything that you probably won’t ever have to touch again, but that you can’t throw out — and I have no idea (obviously) what would fall into that category with your boss, but you probably do, and surely she does also. All that stuff should go in bankers’ boxes and get taken out to her home, to be put in the basement, or to a storage facility if she doesn’t have room at home.

It’s going to be a really big job, and it’s one you can’t undertake without her enthusiastic cooperation. Do as much behind-the-scenes preparation as you possibly can without her input — think of it as if it were your own office, and think how you would organize it for yourself — and then basically spring it on her so that it’s all done…in your head, and all that’s left to be done is just to wade into the pile and whip it into shape.

Dear Sars,

First off, I would like to tell you how much I love
your site. You give us girls everywhere a good name.

I don’t have a problem per se, it’s more like I would
like an outsider’s opinion. About a month ago, a new
guy joined our department here at work. After a little
while I realized I had a full-blown crush on him. We
get along really well and he’s probably the coolest
guy I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. We’ve hung
out together a few times, once at a party (he is
moving in with that mutual friend this month), and
once he invited me to see him spin at a club.

I would like to think the interest is mutual. He calls
me “Goddess” most of the time (then made a reference to
himself being a god), and we’ve had a couple of
intense eye locks. One day a co-worker asked me what
was going on between the two of us. There was also one
time when I was in the breakroom getting ready for
lunch as he was leaving to go back to work, and he
ending up joining me for about a half hour (we didn’t
talk much, we were both reading).

Now, I am terrible when it comes to guys. I think he’s
interested in me, but it seems like once we have a
connection, we both back off and kind of freak out. I
really want something to happen, but I don’t know a)
if he’s interested in the first place, or b) how to
let him know I’m interested without making the work
environment weird. (Someone mentioned another woman
here who was interested in him, and his response was,
“You don’t shit where you eat.”) Am I crazy? Should I
back off and see if he pursues me? Should I make my
intentions known? I would really appreciate your
valuable insight, and appreciate you taking the time
to read this!

Sincerely,
The Goddess

Dear Goddess,

If he’s made his feelings clear about dating in the workplace — and it sounds like he has — I think you’d better forget it and move on.He hasn’t made a concrete move, really, and that doesn’t mean he’s not interested, but I think it does mean that, for whatever reason, he’s thought better of acting on any feelings he might have.

I don’t think workplace romance is automatically a bad idea, but the stars have to align pretty well for it to work out, and they haven’t aligned here.I’d leave it alone.

Sars:

I enjoy your writing and passed along your link to my son, a computer engineer in the making but a writer at heart. He also likes your style and sense of humor. He writes a humor column for Drexel University’s newspaper (believe it or not, engineers can be funny) and we were discussing the expression “if worse comes to worse” so he could use it in this week’s column. Which is the correct term? Is it the one I just mentioned, or “if worst comes to worst,” or “if worse comes to worst”? Hope this isn’t too trivial. (It’s already gone to print so I’ll have to wait to see which one he chose.)

Thanks and keep up the great work!

Mother of a Future Engineer or Writer

Dear Mom,

To my surprise, Garner cites the original expression as “worst comes to [the] worst” — but says that “the more modern and more logical idiom, worse comes to worst,” is more common nowadays.

He has no comment on the relative correctness of either one, but I’d say either is acceptable; only “worse comes to worse” is incorrect.

Dear Sars,

A friend came to me for advice today, yet he doesn’t want to take my advice, so I’m looking for a second opinion. He’s a senior in college and has met a girl. After knowing her for a little less than a week, he asked her out on a date. So far, they’ve had one official date, and it didn’t strike me as especially important, but he feels this is now an official Relationship and refers to her as his girlfriend.

That’s all fine and dandy for him, except that this girl apparently has boys who follow her around a lot, and this bothers him. He refers to them as her “stalkers.” One boy takes a class with her, another meets her outside of her classes, and a third actually climbed up to her window one night. She had to call the police on the third one.

She was bothered by the incident involving her window, but doesn’t seem concerned about the other boys, and I can’t say that I really blame her. My friend, though, is beside himself. He believes that she’s going to get raped or murdered by her “stalkers” and wants to put an end to this. He asked me how he should deal with the situation. I told him all he can do is tell her how he feels and, if she doesn’t do anything and it bothers him too much, he can leave. It’s her life and her decision. He can’t force her to change, even if she really is in any danger.

He’s unsatisfied with what I told him, though. Do you have anything better to suggest?

A Friend of a Friend

Dear Friend,

Not really.I mean, I guess you could point out that he’s just as overinvested as the so-called stalkers at this point, getting all white-knight on her ass after one date, but I don’t think he’d take that very well.

You’ve pointed out, I imagine, that she’s got the situation under control, just like she did before she met your friend, and that it’s not really his deal.Now it’s up to her to tell him to shut up about it, which eventually she will.You’ve done everything you can, so don’t worry about it.

Sars,

I am not the literary genius you and you readers are, so please excuse any grammatical errors, but I could use some advice. I have a friend, May, who gets very involved with every man she dates.

A little background…May is 22, and I can honestly say she has slept with every man she has gone out on a date with. I do not judge her for that, everyone needs to have a little fun. The problem is, she assumes that every guy is her soulmate. She has dated 30-year-old pizza delivery boy potheads that live with their parents, and 20-year-old boys that think having an STD is a noteworthy accomplishment.

The problem…May is currently dating a friend of her younger brother, who seems to be a very nice boy. They have been together for about three months and living together for two weeks. This boy, Bob, is so reclusive that May had to literally drag him to my wedding (she was the maid of honor) because he didn’t want to be around people he didn’t know. I thought this was odd, but hey, some people are uncomfortable around strangers. No problem.

So, he comes to the wedding, no problems. May calls me a couple of weeks later and says that they are renting a house with three other guys. Okay. I asked her if she was okay with that, and she said that financially it is great because all she has to do is sign over her paychecks (which apparently she has been doing since they stated dating), and he will take care of all the bills and give her an allowance.

Does this sound at all strange and wrong to you, Sars? How do I tell May that it is probably a bad idea to give all of her money to a guy she has known for little more than a fortnight?

Please help!

Signed,
Trying to be a good friend

Dear Good,

“Probably” a bad idea?Um, no.It’s an awful idea.An allowance?She’s a grown woman.

Yeah, it’s possible that it’s totally innocent and he only wants her to do that to make the accounting easier…but then…the allowance, which, ew ew ew.What century is this?With the not wanting to spend time with strangers and the taking over her finances, he’s trying to isolate and control her.

It’s a terrible idea.Do not sugar-coat that fact.Tell her it’s a terrible idea, tell her why, and strongly suggest that she reconsider it — and if she won’t, tell her you’re there for her if she needs anything.She might get mad, and that’s fine, but somebody needs to put it out there that she’s getting taken by this Bob.

[12/16/03]

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