Show Us Your Desk, 2015 Edition July 17, 2015 2:24 PM   Subscribe

It has been awhile. Show us your workspace!
posted by all about eevee to MetaFilter-Related at 2:24 PM (143 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite

There are some Costco receipts you can just make out.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 2:42 PM on July 17, 2015 [2 favorites]




I own a desk, but usually the cat is laying on it so I'm typing from the couch.
posted by desjardins at 3:02 PM on July 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


My desk at home is our kitchen table, but here is a panoramic picture of my office.

In real life my office is locally Euclidean.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:06 PM on July 17, 2015 [9 favorites]


Does this qualify?
posted by Namlit at 3:09 PM on July 17, 2015 [9 favorites]


Based on my current productivity levels I was tempted to post thirty screenshots of my current Minecraft lair.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 3:10 PM on July 17, 2015 [8 favorites]


Putting the lie to my Dynamic Denver calendar, a couple of weeks before we leave this building entirely.
posted by rewil at 3:29 PM on July 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Heh, this never gets asked when I'm at home at my very cool desk (partial pic). Anyway right now my workspace, aka "the field," normally looks like this and this in the context of here and there. But right now because of all the goddamned rain it looks like this, that, and every goddamned day, this. Blech.
posted by barchan at 3:37 PM on July 17, 2015 [27 favorites]


This is my desk at home. Not very interesting, although it's a bit gadgety.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:58 PM on July 17, 2015 [5 favorites]


Behold.
posted by phunniemee at 4:05 PM on July 17, 2015 [5 favorites]




๐ŸŽฎ๐ŸŽฑ๐Ÿ’บ๐Ÿ”—
posted by clavdivs at 4:09 PM on July 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


Finally, I have a real desk! I'm currently grad student/research technician at molecular biology lab, so my work desk becomes my school desk at night - desk before and after finals
posted by lizjohn at 4:11 PM on July 17, 2015 [5 favorites]


Yes, Hamtaro is wearing his Halloween Frankenstein mask and it's only July.

He's such a clown.
posted by notyou at 4:12 PM on July 17, 2015


This is a very insightful look at those of you who use the professional white background and those of you who don't. So far, nobody.

(on preview) OH oh there's one! *waves at lizjohn*
posted by barchan at 4:13 PM on July 17, 2015 [1 favorite]




Here's the desk at which I do my lab work (I'm not one of those neat bench people)
posted by lizjohn at 4:22 PM on July 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


Haha, for the first time I shall post, for I have recently Kon-Mari'd my desk! SO CLEAN. I don't actually get to sit here and work all that often because usually I'm on my laptop in the livingroom supervising my kids, but when I DO get to sit and work, I do it here on my laptop. The upper shelf of the desk usually has two big fat cats lounging on it (part of the reason it behooves me to keep my desk clear), but I scared them by closing the blinds so I could get at least an okay picture. (There is a two-drawer filing cabinet to the right that you can't see that has paperwork in it, and a stack of legal pads on top of it.) If you look closely you can see my kids' binoculars under the shelf, and some rocks they found on top of it, and also one of the kids' nature journals, because the OTHER reason I have to keep the desk clear is that my kids like to climb up and sit on it and use the top shelf to draw in their nature journals because the KEY point of my desk is that the blinds are never down and I look out on ...

This bit of my garden. That's my bird-and-butterfly garden and all the plants were selected because they attract native wildlife. And there's a hummingbird feeder I got from My First Quonsmas this year. You can see why my cats and children both are always all up in my desk, since they can watch birds and rabbits and squirrels all day. (My kids have to draw pictures of their observations in their nature journals, is the price for disrupting mom's desk. There's a little container of crayons in the shadows there somewhere.) Those little birds at the bottom aren't actual birds, btw, they're bird stickers on the window to help my kids identify some of the look-alike brown ones.

Sometimes I get to sit and work IN the garden but it's a little too hot and humid for my increasingly-temperamental laptop just now, so mostly I read out there.

(The cool chair is from Big Lots, of all places. I went to buy off-season cheap ziploc baggies and came out with a cool desk chair.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:36 PM on July 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


Another day in paradise...
posted by wallabear at 4:48 PM on July 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


I keep it corporate for all the haters.

Sadly, the founder of my company recently passed and I'm worried the family will sell off the cowboy art collection that is spread out across all the offices here. This is the painting on the wall behind my monitors.
posted by mullacc at 4:59 PM on July 17, 2015 [8 favorites]


Hm, nothing currently top-secret or unreleased on my desk .
posted by GuyZero at 5:23 PM on July 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also you're welcome to try to play I-Spy and identify all the random gadgets on my desk. Sadly my camera phone is really soft when it comes to focus. :/
posted by GuyZero at 5:27 PM on July 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


Where I'll be working tonight. (She is nesting in her hut as I type! Piglets soon!)
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:36 PM on July 17, 2015 [17 favorites]


Hmm. I haven't got an actual photo of my desktop at the moment, but this gives me a chance to self indulgently complain about how cramped our office is. Fifty people work in this hovel. Is it any wonder I make intemperate comments about this government's attitude to legal aid funding?
posted by howfar at 7:08 PM on July 17, 2015 [3 favorites]


My workspace is an entire fucking store. and a kiosk in Central Park. and the whole damn city when they send me out on the truck to pick up the books from someone's estate.
posted by jonmc at 7:16 PM on July 17, 2015 [7 favorites]


Sorry. Tired, Overworked, and pips is out of town.
posted by jonmc at 7:52 PM on July 17, 2015 [3 favorites]




๐Ÿ’Ž๐Ÿ“๐Ÿ’ต๐Ÿ”๐Ÿ“ป๐Ÿ‘˜๐Ÿ’–๐Ÿšค๐Ÿš ๐Ÿฎ๐Ÿš”๐Ÿšฏ๐Ÿ•—๐Ÿšธ๐Ÿ‘”๐ŸŒš๐Ÿš•๐ŸŒ‡๐ŸŒ๐ŸŒ‹โ˜”๏ธ๐ŸŽ๐ŸŽฅ๐ŸŽฉ๐Ÿšถ๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿ‘บ๐Ÿ†•๐Ÿ˜น๐Ÿ“ช๐Ÿ“…๐Ÿ“๐Ÿƒ๐Ÿข...โฐ
posted by clavdivs at 8:38 PM on July 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


My totally boring desk that still hasn't been fully decorated despite three weeks of almost-daily reminders from other people.
posted by smangosbubbles at 8:40 PM on July 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


Apparently clavdivs' desk can be represented by emojii.
posted by bendy at 9:04 PM on July 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


MonkeyToes: "Where I'll be working tonight. (She is nesting in her hut as I type! Piglets soon!)"

MonkeyToes and I are colleagues. One of the places I work lookes this. The photo is a little unclear, but it's an enormous pile of skulls.
posted by stet at 9:09 PM on July 17, 2015 [4 favorites]


Here's my desk. It's a three-year-old photo though and I have since replaced my desktop with a laptop. There are more photos of the workroom it sits in in this post about how I renovated the space.
posted by orange swan at 9:10 PM on July 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


it's an enormous pile of skulls

I think I'm having skull envy. AWESOME.
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:13 PM on July 17, 2015 [2 favorites]


I have an office but it's just a mundane cube so I figured I'd show you one of the machines I've been working on.

Here is a 275 hp motor on a gear box that brings the max speed up to 15,000 rpm. That's sitting on a Sundyne LMC compressor.
The white box on the left is the VFD that allows me to control the speed of the motor. You can look in the white box here. The two gray boxes next to the white box contain addition controls for the system.
The silver box above the white box is a 12,000 watt, 5.5 ohm braking resistor that allows me to change the speed of the big motor very quickly.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:47 PM on July 17, 2015 [8 favorites]


*sees all of orange swan's dictionaries, sighs in complete happiness*
*sees skull pile, sighs in complete happiness*
*sees compressor, sighs in complete happiness*
*sees Gorbel bridge? crane, squeals in complete happiness* geez I love cranes.
posted by barchan at 10:02 PM on July 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


I have several workspaces but this is the one where I spend most of my time these days. It's in a cold, dark cellar (literally dark because of IF) which gets a bit depressing sometimes.
posted by shelleycat at 12:48 AM on July 18, 2015 [4 favorites]


Utterly boring...
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:07 AM on July 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


Here's how I knew it was time for another Show Us Your Desk Spectacular .... I'm getting the decades-old terrible baseboard heating pulled out of my bedroom, so I've been piling all sorts of stuff that lives in my bedroom in my StudiOffice. When it's light I'll have to post a picture of one of my temporary workspaces where I get absolutely NO work done because: frogs! cats! groundhogs!
posted by julen at 2:17 AM on July 18, 2015


My work area this morning. Four!
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:58 AM on July 18, 2015 [33 favorites]


I just use my phone, so my "workspace" doesn't have a desk. It does have a nice double chin though.
posted by that's how you get ants at 5:56 AM on July 18, 2015 [21 favorites]


Although to be honest it usually has a lot in common with MonkeyToes' latest picture, too.
posted by that's how you get ants at 6:09 AM on July 18, 2015 [10 favorites]


Your workspace is adorable, 'ants!
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:16 AM on July 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Friday at 5:24pm EDT seems like a non-ideal time to ask this question. Here is my home desk, complete with the WASD Keyboard with Cherry MX clear switches that my wife totally hates.
posted by Plutor at 7:43 AM on July 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Complete with fireplace!
posted by Mouse Army at 8:05 AM on July 18, 2015 [4 favorites]


Here's my desk. I move the sewing machine when I have to work. I don't ever just answer an email quick with my arms around the sewing machine and my chin on top. Nope.
posted by artychoke at 8:49 AM on July 18, 2015


I thought maybe I could dissuade people from coming to bother me but it turns out they all want to stop and talk about it.
posted by komara at 8:59 AM on July 18, 2015 [12 favorites]


I can totally see why people would want to ask about that tomato can.
posted by slkinsey at 9:07 AM on July 18, 2015 [6 favorites]


Here's my old work space - I was moved out of it on Friday. On Monday I'll be in a new work space - less room, much more privacy. I'm only in the office 3 days a week, so I don't get a spiffy big space like everybody else. I'll be cramming all the stuff in the first picture into this second picture on Monday morning. Leaving behind the standing desk (woe!) because it's supermassive and I'm not willing to give up the space. I plan to DIY it when I get settled in. (Sorry about the deliberate blurring, I work in an industry that uh, highly values privacy.)

Here's my home office, where I spend the bulk of my time working and playing - kind of boring, so I hooked up the Cat Peripheral to jazz it up a bit. Look, there's even evidence of hygiene! In the future, I expect your mental images of kythuen to include great exfoliation, perfect cuticles, and a subtle hint of pomegranate in the air.
posted by kythuen at 9:13 AM on July 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, floss! Wow, I would totally kill it in an internet workspace blind date pool.
posted by kythuen at 9:19 AM on July 18, 2015


This is my other home office. (Yeah, I'm just showing off now. Can't let the four little piggies win!)
posted by kythuen at 9:23 AM on July 18, 2015 [4 favorites]


is it weird that i write in bed?
posted by PinkMoose at 10:04 AM on July 18, 2015


Well, this is relevant to my interests, as I just added some super-naff LED strip lighting.

My desk has never been this clean.
posted by generichuman at 10:12 AM on July 18, 2015 [3 favorites]




I own a motorcycle shop. On Saturdays we have donuts.
posted by workerant at 11:18 AM on July 18, 2015 [12 favorites]


Here's the-really-not-at-all-minimalist-in-the-slightest home office. Shop desk forthcoming (I go in at four).
posted by thivaia at 11:20 AM on July 18, 2015 [4 favorites]


Sometimes I post here with my little tengu friend.

But other times I post here, because lazy.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 11:31 AM on July 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


It looks gray from where I sit, so it might be the magic of Sony Xperia that makes it look bluish.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 11:56 AM on July 18, 2015


Is that a kiddush cup in your workspace, Pyrogenesis?

I've been sick with that summer cold/Slack virus that's been going around. This seems like a good excuse to clean my desk.
posted by limeonaire at 11:59 AM on July 18, 2015


As of today I have furniture again! Operation Move To New England And Acquire A Vagina (motto: "Cooter or Bust!") is underway โ€” though I ended up settling on Boston instead of Vermont. I found an apartment and my moving pod full of furniture from Texas just arrived today. The unloading went perfectly smoothly. (And I am this close [fingers very close together] to getting a job with insurance that would cover SRS, though the one surgeon who takes said insurance has a waiting list of almost two years at this point. One step at a time.)

And OH MY GOD I am super grateful for all the hand-holding from AskMe. As a high-anxiety person, it's great to have access to a small army of highly information-literate pedants whispering "This is totally doable and here are some details to consider" during crucial moments.

Anyway, in lieu of a desk, please accept this pile of boxes and whatnot, which is what I'll be working at until I get my tables reassembled.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:48 PM on July 18, 2015 [12 favorites]


My work desks are shared with coworkers and totally boring.
Also, you all must have just swept everything you normally have piled on your desk off to the side, right? Taken the opportunity of this thread to neaten up a bit? Get that minimalism back in order, yeh? Well then, it's my duty to tip the scales back in the other direction, and I think I've got the desk to do it all in one fell swoop. (It could probably use a fell swooping or two.)
This mess is a place!
posted by carsonb at 12:57 PM on July 18, 2015 [4 favorites]


I have the best office I've ever had since working for AF in Sophia Antipolis ten years ago, when I was on the third floor on top of a hill with a view to the east, of the Alps and Italy curving out along the Mediterranean.

Desk. It's modular, I don't actually sit there very often. Just has a tower PC and a laptop.

View from my desk. The glassy, white, open square edifice in the center back is the Arche de la Dรฉfense. To its right, a shorter squarish-rectangular (it's actually triangular when seen from the sky) building is where I did a bunch of work last year, and to the left, partially cut off by our glass office building, you can see a skyscraper with a curved "net" on top of it, which is the GDF Suez scraper I also worked in last year. yep, triple bonus office shot.
posted by fraula at 1:00 PM on July 18, 2015 [5 favorites]


Where I stand.
posted by cgc373 at 1:21 PM on July 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Part II: Shop Desk
posted by thivaia at 1:24 PM on July 18, 2015 [7 favorites]


Nice effort carsonb, but I still have the messiest desk in the thread.
posted by artychoke at 1:59 PM on July 18, 2015


Nice effort carsonb, but I still have the messiest desk in the thread.

If we're playing the "who's trying least hard" game in here, I feel I should note that I cropped my photo where I did to hide the fact that I wasn't wearing any pants.
posted by phunniemee at 2:02 PM on July 18, 2015 [10 favorites]


This was my actual work desk a couple of weeks ago if you want a different kind of messy. I had put away all the normal piles of paper that live to the left of the computer because I was on holiday when this happened. But it's generally pretty tidy because I don't work there much, my lab bench is much more cluttered (not that I'm there much either, too busy in the dungeon pictured above).
posted by shelleycat at 2:09 PM on July 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


my habitat pile, aka TheExplodingHeadOfKonMari.jpg
posted by scruss at 3:07 PM on July 18, 2015 [10 favorites]


Me! I will have a new desk this weekend, but until then I have a cluttered card table in my dining room, with a view of some trees, beer sitting in direct sunlight, and a random assortment of allergy and acid reflux medications.
posted by easter queen at 4:17 PM on July 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Sorry it took me a while to get here, I was at my summer desk.
posted by Lynsey at 4:40 PM on July 18, 2015 [2 favorites]


A lot of you guys have cool art.

I cropped out an unmade bed. Fully Kon-Mari'd desk, can't be arsed to make the bed.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:04 PM on July 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Fully Kon-Mari'd desk

*googles furiously*

huh.

*checks library availability*

It's checked out to someone else. Phew!
posted by carsonb at 5:16 PM on July 18, 2015 [1 favorite]


Friday at 5:24pm EDT seems like a non-ideal time to ask this question
Sorry, I work all week long, and I am moving workspaces currently, so I am interested in other people's layouts and accessories.
posted by all about eevee at 5:56 PM on July 18, 2015


 โ†’ It's checked out to someone else. Phew!

I recycled my copy, since it didn't spark any joy in my life. Plus, the whole bit about thanking your shoes and clothes at the end of the day is pure crouton-petting crazypants batshitinsanity.
(I've never understood tidy people. How do they ever find stuff?)
posted by scruss at 7:17 PM on July 18, 2015 [7 favorites]


If we're playing the "who's trying least hard" game

My photo was taken from on top of a barrel.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:52 PM on July 18, 2015




Is that a kiddush cup in your workspace, Pyrogenesis?

It's a "medieval style" pewter goblet. I have a bunch of such replica medieval stuff hanging on my walls as well.

Also, you all must have just swept everything you normally have piled on your desk off to the side, right?

I did not. I am indeed precisely that boring... :(
posted by Pyrogenesis at 12:48 AM on July 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


After our last move I had to give up on the large, adjustable table and now have occupied a closet. Hadn't realised how dingy it looked until I took a picture. Need to get some lights in there.
posted by monocultured at 3:13 AM on July 19, 2015


My in-the-office desk was moved to a much nicer corner this year, and I'm pretty happy about that. That lamp has a plant-grow bulb in it and the vines have taken over half my desk by now. My at-home desk is the same as last time.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:50 AM on July 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is an approximation.
posted by effbot at 4:32 AM on July 19, 2015 [4 favorites]


Plus, the whole bit about thanking your shoes and clothes at the end of the day is pure crouton-petting crazypants batshitinsanity.

I dunno, deliberately cultivated crouton-petting is how I'm currently convincing myself to keep my kitchen clean-ish.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:27 AM on July 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


nebulawindphone, are you crate training them? Everybody says to crate train your crutons but my kitchen is pretty cramped and I was thinking of just putting a baby gate on the door. What do you think?
posted by phunniemee at 6:50 AM on July 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


Mine is a collection of many things that need replacing and/or upgrading. But everything still gets the job done.
posted by mikeo2 at 7:15 AM on July 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


Here's one of my temp offices while my studioffice is holding the contents of my bedroom. That's Hubert to the right.
posted by julen at 7:17 AM on July 19, 2015 [3 favorites]


motto: "Cooter or Bust!"

Why not both?
posted by Going To Maine at 8:35 AM on July 19, 2015 [10 favorites]


I work from home now.
posted by jeffamaphone at 12:43 PM on July 19, 2015




No camera to snap my own desks, sadly, but you all should know you're making me very jealous. Unless we're going for messiest work station, in which case I could be making you all jealous. But in defense of the organizational-pile philosophy I'd like to quote from a paper I happen to be reading now:
Studies of office workers provide evidence that humans often prefer to use their visual skills in organizing their work. Although haphazard "stacks" of papers would seem to be an inefficient organizational strategy, stacks allow search based on the remembered location and appearance of documents, rather than relying on their more easily forgotten textual labels.
Take that, neat people with your pretty desks! I looked up that Kon-Mari thing and it seemed to be about throwing away every object that doesn't give you joy. Well that's why I keep all the stuff that constitutes my mess, so, mission accomplished I guess. My cluttered workspace is actually a well-planned "simplified" system!
posted by traveler_ at 3:44 PM on July 19, 2015 [7 favorites]


I snapped a photo as I was cleaning today. I probably should've waited until after I'd finished cleaning as this was the first time in about six weeks I had time and energy to dust. Actually, were I scrupulous about this, I should probably have put up a picture of the diaper changing station.
posted by Kattullus at 3:50 PM on July 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm working from home, now
posted by jazon at 4:26 PM on July 19, 2015


There are frequent craftsplosions at the kitchen table. I have a craft room upstairs and a corner of the basement, but this is where my bird likes to hang out :)
posted by Calzephyr at 4:50 PM on July 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


Both places are a little messy for photos, but: At home, I have a glass-topped desk with a big monitor and an ancient keyboard (Model-M-esque, no number pad) and a wireless trackball. At work, I have a regular old Dell computer and a vintage Swingline (when did staplers start being so junky?) and a fairly extravagant audio setup (Schiit DAC and bamboo Audioengine speakers). At either place, there's a Pyrex cup with pens and pencils and Sharpies, and a Klean Kanteen on a coaster, and some succulents in Akro-Agate pots nearby.
posted by box at 4:53 PM on July 19, 2015


The cockpit of my small bakery/market. And the view from the little window. Sunday after 4 is the only time we are ever closed during the day. I love it here on sunday afternoons.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 4:54 PM on July 19, 2015 [10 favorites]


Here's what my workspace (aka living room floor) looks like when I'm in the middle of making a zine. Oscar Wildecat, being something of a literary kitty, likes to insert himself into the process.

Undortunately, zine making is on the back burner for now because I am crushed under the weight of this stack. I believe that photo was taken on my bed; if it was, that's about as good a representation of my school work space as anything.
posted by ActionPopulated at 6:08 PM on July 19, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm on the 6th floor of a building sort of in the middle of nowhere, on the edge of Denver Metro. Fortunately there is a gravel pit across the street which is fascinating to watch - with the front end loaders and trucks crawling around. Desk
posted by fieldtrip at 7:39 PM on July 19, 2015 [1 favorite]


Mine, while I attempt to prepare for an upcoming show. I am bad at guitar storage.
posted by invitapriore at 11:25 PM on July 19, 2015 [3 favorites]


Still in the bedroom, still the same. Sadly I had to remove a nice big ficus from a non-visible corner of this fairly small room to replace with a dresser because we don't have enough space for stuffing things. I miss the tree. I'd put it to the left of the desk, but the laundry hamper is there.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:12 AM on July 20, 2015


My desk consists of two Macs, a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino board (with built in LCD!) and assorted other electronic gizmos.
posted by philquadra at 5:27 AM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


My Desk.
Wizard hat, Engineer (train) hat, giant "Engineer Print" of my dog in snow, stupid computer, Litographs print of Don Quixote, Dr Teeth and Electric Mayhem poster, Lots o' junk.
posted by DigDoug at 5:48 AM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Monday morning, back at work. Here's my standing desk at a large internet company you've definitely heard of. I haven't sat at my desk at work in something like 8 years.

And because everyone apparently cares deeply about my keyboard: Here's it's a Das Keyboard Model S Professional with Cherry MX blue switches.
posted by Plutor at 6:20 AM on July 20, 2015


My desk is the whole hospital. My computer is every workstation. There are a lot of narcotics in my desk drawers but only the nurses can get to them.
posted by The White Hat at 6:23 AM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


Hey, kids, can you stand the evil of THE MONSTER'S LAIR?!?

Where sometimes you can't tell if it's 2005? HA! Aha! AHAHAHAHA! HA, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:24 AM on July 20, 2015


Mine, while I attempt to prepare for an upcoming show. I am bad at guitar storage.
posted by invitapriore at 11:25 PM on July 19 [2 favorites +] [!]


OMG, your desk is totally a face.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:25 AM on July 20, 2015 [3 favorites]


Organized chaos. Not shown: the wrapper for the Caramello bar that I definitely didn't eat for breakfast.
posted by okayokayigive at 6:33 AM on July 20, 2015


Desk is boring, but here's a picture of the music-at-work stack on the desk. Speaking of which, I highly recommend Primrose Green to all fans of Pentangle-ish/Bert Jansch-ish/John Martyn-ish psych-folky sound.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:02 AM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


My workspace, with a local.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:31 AM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


I just moved in to my new office.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:19 AM on July 20, 2015


Still moving in, but at least I've got my priorities straight
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:24 AM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]




Having banjaxed my foot in early May most of my computing/desk time is me on the couch with my foot elevated. Not pictured: small dog snuggled next to me, and bigger dog we are sitting on the floor at my feet.
posted by terrapin at 8:56 AM on July 20, 2015


backseatpilot: I just moved in to my new office.

Does that slide rule see much use these days?
posted by traveler_ at 9:51 AM on July 20, 2015


Here's my desk at the office. I'm rather fond of it despite the growing pile of junk over on the right-hand side. And here's where most of the stuff I work on actually lives.

My home desk is far too messy to be shown in public.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 9:54 AM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Pretty spartan. I've never been an office decorator.
posted by jedicus at 10:28 AM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


Does that slide rule see much use these days?

I actually have four on my desk right now - there are three in the leather holsters, and then behind my chair in that photo is a pencil cup that is also a slide rule. I sort of know how to use the more basic functions on them. I do not use them very frequently.
posted by backseatpilot at 11:35 AM on July 20, 2015


Today's desk.jpg.
posted by brennen at 12:08 PM on July 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


My desk, at least for the next few weeks. Then I'll be building a new one.....
posted by nevercalm at 2:17 PM on July 20, 2015


My home desk setup is pretty simple and a little messy, but has everything I need.
posted by tealNoise at 3:25 PM on July 20, 2015


This is my desk. It's fairly plain and boring but then that suits me. It's just to the left of the dropped pin here so when I look out the window or go for a walk I get to see less boring things. My workspaces at home are much more interesting but unfortunately much less used.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 3:41 PM on July 20, 2015


Now I am running a pig spa. The little ones nap in a pile while Mama relaxes nearby. (Five! One more arrived after I posted.)
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:41 PM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]




I am amazed by how many of you have really neat desks with almost nothing on them. How do you function? Mine is not neat. It is colourful though, because I loathe boring office colours. It also looks bigger than it actually is; in reality I border the corridor between cubicles and there's the little kitchen/tea room area right opposite. Yes, other people's toasted sandwiches do drive me nuts.

Bonus nerd points to anyone who recognises the journal sitting on my desk. Although I suppose you can always just zoom in enough to read the title. Seriously, it is for work.
posted by Athanassiel at 6:17 PM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


This was my desk over the past weekend. It has lots of colorful blinky lights.

There's a lot more things that I need besides the desk to do my job, though.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:20 PM on July 20, 2015


A patriotic view of the Trial Gardens.
posted by gray17 at 8:00 PM on July 20, 2015


I am amazed by how many of you have really neat desks with almost nothing on them

for me the trick is that everything I work on is digital.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:15 PM on July 20, 2015 [2 favorites]


New work desk, it's very ... government gray ... still trying to figure out how to spice it up a bit (no live plants allowed here). Home "desk" (tried to crop out most of the mess.)
posted by gudrun at 5:40 AM on July 21, 2015


Here's my mess - including my T cell and photo of St. Elizabeth.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:26 AM on July 21, 2015


Barchan, you want a crane?

Here's a machine I worked on a few years ago. It has a fully motorized dual bridge crane. Notice there are no control pendants on the two hoists? That's because they are both on RF remotes, you control both with one little remote. You can chose a single one to move or move both in tandem with the single remote. It's pretty cool and allows you to change the angle of whatever you're lifting.

What you might ask is the rest of all that stuff? It's our high pressure burst system. It's used to pressurize equipment up to failure, it can go up to 60,000 psi. The yellowish thing is on the floor is actually an armored door over the underground pit that we lower the equipment to be tested into. Both the equipment and the pit are filled with water to absorb any excess energy. The door itself is two layers of poly-carbonate sandwiching 14 layers of Kevlar, yes it's really bulletproof. Also the walls are concrete filled. I did all the pneumatic, electrical and programming for the safety interlocks and data collection.

I've seen it tear inch thick stainless steel like it was paper. Yes it shakes the whole building when things fail catastrophically.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 9:53 AM on July 21, 2015 [4 favorites]


Cherry MX clear switches that my wife totally hates

If it's the sound of them she hates, my Cherry MX clears are quiet as a mouse with the thick o-rings applied to the stems. The sound of my talons on the caps is also quieted by little transparent e-grips dots applied to the tops of the keys. All the Cherry MX Clear goodness, none of the obnoxiousness.
posted by tigrrrlily at 11:22 AM on July 21, 2015


Sophie1: Killer T-cell, maaaan! =)
posted by Juffo-Wup at 11:45 AM on July 21, 2015 [1 favorite]


I am amazed by how many of you have really neat desks with almost nothing on them. How do you function?

The real mess is off to the right out of frame. The office is so small that I couldn't get back far enough to capture the whole desk.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:51 AM on July 21, 2015


How do you function?

The mess is in my mind.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 11:55 AM on July 21, 2015 [6 favorites]


I've worked at home for the past six months. Mac Mini under pile of junk on right.
posted by mrbill at 5:00 PM on July 21, 2015


Aww, pretty sure this will be closed next month but I'll be starting my first teaching position(!) in barely more than several weeks, so maybe I will have a desk to call my own, a spot to call home. It'll be better than '3D Structured Light Scanning based Geometric Morphometrics Archaeological floor station' of last time (2 years back, it's been busy). If there's no desk that's ok too. Likely less lens flare. I'll be ready for a year from. Mostly.
posted by infinite intimation at 7:41 PM on July 21, 2015 [2 favorites]


It ain't much to look at compared to my art room at Amplifier, but here is my new desk at my new job. I like the job.

When I got here, they provided me with a Windows 8 box, which is all well and good... no it isn't, that's a lie. I noped out of that damn thing except for 1 ink mixing software package that only runs on Windows, & brought my MBP. You can barely see The Box Of Shame peeking out from under the desk.

If you look on the stand under my MBP, you can see the nifty OWC external USB3 240gb SSD drive that I now boot the laptop from. It is a strictly amazing little device.
posted by Devils Rancher at 12:18 PM on July 22, 2015


Confess, Fletch, that is so super cool! Thanks for writing all of that up. I admit I'd love to see that in action as pressure failure in controlled conditions is probably way cooler than IRL when it's scary as fuck. (I once saw part of a pig go through someone's car, among other things.) On the rig I'm always silently thanking anybody who does pressure burst testing or who works with any kind of mechanical strength failure; however though I've wondered about the necessary safety systems I've never seen them described.

Anyway, that's awesome and thank you!
posted by barchan at 12:48 PM on July 22, 2015


My desk is pretty normcore. It has snax in it, though!
posted by ignignokt at 7:06 AM on July 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


OMG, you guys have some killer workspaces. I'm digging checking them all out!

I'm a little late to the game, but here's shots of my two workspaces and me in them.

My office desk. Facing the other way in my office.

My home studio. At the easel. Easel outdoors.
posted by culfinglin at 11:14 AM on July 28, 2015 [4 favorites]


Pantone book spotted, fellow traveller.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:29 AM on July 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Late to the party, but: this is the desk I share with my son when I work at home, or do stuff with him. Notice the "cool dad" Telecaster + Marshall amp.
posted by signal at 11:43 AM on July 29, 2015


Oh, I finally got a good picture of my desk fully equipped, with my three laptops (one electronic, two feline).

Please note that each feline-model laptop is only equipped with a single optical sensor instead of the standard dual-sensor setup.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 1:41 PM on July 29, 2015 [1 favorite]


Did you build that windowsill specifically for cats?
posted by desjardins at 10:49 AM on July 30, 2015


No, it's just the "hutch" shelf on my desk (which I've had through four moves), but when it matched up so perfectly with our windows in this house, we did commit to pushing it right up against a window somewhere so the cats could lounge better! There's even a birdfeeder right outside the window for them to watch.

I do have to clean my desk unreasonably often to keep cat fur out of my electronics, tho.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:57 AM on July 30, 2015


My home office, complete with cats.
posted by jeri at 10:58 AM on August 9, 2015


What optimal-appearing feline units!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:04 PM on August 9, 2015


« Older Emotional [Labor] Rescue   |   What the heck is securewebhosting.org? Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments