12 things on your work desk that are making you look unprofessional
- Having a cluttered desk or inappropriate items in your workspace could be making a bad impression on your colleagues or employers.
- Here are 12 things on your work desk that are making you look unprofessional.
Some people would argue that a messy desk is a sign of genius — and actual geniuses like Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs would seem to be among them.
Others, like the people who actually work with and beside you, might find your mess less than endearing.
And beyond clutter, items that are varying degrees of inappropriate and downright disgusting are among the biggest workplace offenders, according to the human resources professionals we interviewed.
Here are a dozen desk “don’ts” that make you look less than professional.
SEE ALSO: 6 things you should always keep at your desk
1. An avalanche of dishes and Tupperware
Bringing your lunch to work is commendable. But leaving a week’s worth of crusted-over food containers and half of a mug collection in your workspace is atrocious.
“Keeping a lot of items you use for eating scattered all over your desk shows a lack of time management and a lack of respect for your coworkers and the shared office space,” said Jodi Barbarino, a director of HR and recruitment in Miami.
2. A swarm of sticky notes
In a 2017 survey conducted by the staffing firm OfficeTeam, more than half of the senior managers interviewed for it said that “having a messy or disorganized workspace” was the “most distracting or annoying” thing about employees’ work areas. And one of the easiest ways to create visual insanity is to accumulate so many sticky notes that you can barely see the surface of your desk anymore.
A better strategy: invest in a portable notebook and pen you love, so you’ll use them all the time to keep all your important reminders in one place.
3. Suggestive pictures or calendars
You wouldn’t need to decorate your cubicle with explicit images in order to be inappropriate in the eyes of your managers and colleagues. Barbarino said to second guess anything remotely sexy or suggestive.
“Even if they’re cartoon images, they can be very offensive, and if sexual in nature it could be treated as sexual harassment,” she said. Yes, that even includes pictures of yourself scantily clad, say, at the beach.
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