My work desks have always included piles of lined yellow legal or reporter note pads.

Even now in semi-retirement my home desk is cluttered with recent school and town board meeting notes, agendas, and financial reports.

There are two coffee cups jammed full of pens and markers of all colors, scissors, and a large magnifying glass. Ooops, make that three coffee cups. Another one was hiding behind stacks of papers, and maybe a Style book, or two, and Open Meeting/ Records books.

Yes, I’m one of Those People.

I’ve always had a messy desk.

Right now I have sticky notes around the bottom of my computer screen, and not until now just realized they are in five different colors. Above the screen is a military times list to help when I’m writing up police reports, and County Election Board lists of municipal office candidate information so we can do a Q&A with candidates. Unfortunately, those lists don’t include snail mail addresses

due to an apparent new law, and not all candidates listed phone numbers, or email addresses.

But I digress.

I also have books, file folders and more notes scattered on table tops, and on, and in, a file cabinet, or three. In other words, it’s sorta like my old office at The Hennessey Clipper (1978-18).

That reminds me of when Jimmy Berkenbile walked into our office for the first time.

“This is like walking into a museum!” he told me.

His observation had to do with all the stuff on the walls back then because he was too much of a gentleman to be referring to me.

We left all the newspaper’s awards won over 100 years at the office when we sold the paper in Dec. 2013.

Then a couple of years ago I brought in some of my personal Clipper stuff from our garage. It’s still in boxes in my office, and yes, my office looks about the same as my desk.

Afriendsaidhewouldn’t trust anyone with a clean work desk.

My theory is: A clean desk means an employee has nothing to do, is milking a simple job, or is so focused and efficient at their job that they could be my boss.