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My grandpa saw my desk on a video call and asked where the ashtray and phone book went
Honestly my grandpa called me on video chat a few nights ago and I turned the camera around to show him my little desk corner, and he just squinted and asked where the ashtray and the phone book were supposed to go. He ran a small insurance office out of his spare room in Erie, Pennsylvania for about 30 years, and his desk was this big oak thing with a green blotter, a rotary phone, and stacks of paper everywhere. He said the whole point of a desk was that everything you needed was already on it, and now he watches me close three browser tabs and move one little lamp to "set up my space." I laughed at first but it stuck with me, because my setup is basically a laptop, a mug, and one plant, and I still spend way too long moving that plant around. He never had a charging cable or a second screen and somehow got more done before lunch than I do all day. It made me think maybe cozy for him was just having his stuff within arm's reach, dust and all. Does anyone here keep anything old school on their desk on purpose, like an actual paper calendar or a real pencil cup?
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the_viola28d ago
My buddy Dave has this old wooden desk from his dad who worked at a newspaper in Ohio and he refuses to clean it. There's a coffee ring stain and a dent from where a typewriter sat, and he just leaves an old pencil cup with golf pencils in it next to his laptop. When we were helping him move last year he almost cried when a corner got scratched because the scratch is from when his dad dropped a stapler in 1989. It looks weird next to his two monitors but he swears he types better sitting there. I get it now, the lamp being moved around thing is funny but the dent isn't going anywhere.
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