From Donna's Desk:

There’s a kind of productivity that gets rewarded in corporate life because it’s visible.

Not solving the problem.
Not finishing the work.
Just getting it off your desk.

“Desk cleared” is a comforting phrase. It sounds like control. It photographs well. It also has nothing to do with whether anything is actually better.

Because for some people, the real crisis is not the situation. The crisis is the feeling of not being in charge of the situation. So the goal becomes removal, not resolution.

And you can learn a lot about someone by where they send the things they can’t control.

Some people send it to a calendar.
Some people send it to a committee.
Some people send it to a brave subordinate with a high tolerance for nonsense.

And some people send it to Accounting.

Accounting is where you send things when you want them to become Someone Else’s Problem, but you also want to look “responsible” while doing it.

What’s funny is that Accounting is not a black hole. It’s a boomerang with a spreadsheet.

They don’t make things disappear. They make things make sense.

So yes, a desk may look cleared. The surface may be pristine. The vibe may be “handled.”

But if the work wasn’t done, it’s still in the building.
It’s just walking around with a new label.

-Donna

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