Speaker 1: From executive search to talent strategy, leadership development, rewards and
Speaker 1: succession planning. Corn Fairy can help you realize the full
Speaker 1: potential of your people so you can take your business
Speaker 1: where it wants to go up. Learn more at corn
Speaker 1: Ferry dot com slash up. When I was a little boy,
Speaker 1: I was a tremendous fan of Miami Vice. In particular,
Speaker 1: I was a big fan of the character of Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Martin Castillo. And why, may you ask, because Martin Castillo
Speaker 1: never had anything on his desk, and I thought that
Speaker 1: was maybe the coolest thing I had ever seen in
Speaker 1: my life. And as I've gotten to be a grown up,
Speaker 1: I've tried to hold fast to that standard, not always
Speaker 1: reaching it, but always striving for it. I recognize, however,
Speaker 1: that I am a little bit different than other people.
Speaker 1: Many people have very messy desks. The office can be
Speaker 1: a place of untidiness, germs in bacteria. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that here on Game Plan. Hi, everybody,
Speaker 1: I am Sam Grobart. I am a writer at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week magazine, and I'm Rebecca Greenfield. I'm a reporter
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg, where I cover the workplace and you're listening
Speaker 1: to our special episode of Game Plan in which we
Speaker 1: talk about the office, the office as Petrie dish, the
Speaker 1: office as dumpster, the office as a vector of infection, bacteria,
Speaker 1: and other things. I keep a messy desk. What No,
Speaker 1: I just don't care. Look at you. Yeah, I'm really cool,
Speaker 1: rebel without a cause. Now. I just put things on
Speaker 1: my desk and then they pile up and it doesn't
Speaker 1: bother me until it does. It causes you know, anxiety. None.
Speaker 1: You require no medication for this anxiety. Man, This is
Speaker 1: where we are different. I actually wrote a story defending
Speaker 1: my position. Um. It was called if you want to
Speaker 1: be a Slab, Be a slab, And it was a
Speaker 1: book review of a book that came out earlier this
Speaker 1: year by Tim Harford, who is known as the Undercover Economist,
Speaker 1: And he wrote a book called Messy, The Power of
Speaker 1: Disordered to Transform Our Lives and it he talks about
Speaker 1: a lot of different types of mess uses the term
Speaker 1: very loosely, but there are some chapters on cleanliness and
Speaker 1: tidiness in the office, and in it he makes the
Speaker 1: case for being as messy or as clean as you
Speaker 1: want to be. Okay, quick question, Tim Harford, Marie Condo,
Speaker 1: steel cage match. Who do you think wins? Marie Condo
Speaker 1: I think would murder him. I think she's got the interferocity. Listen.
Speaker 1: I grew up with free to be you and me.
Speaker 1: I understand that we are all snowflakes and and different,
Speaker 1: but there is something about really. I mean, I've seen
Speaker 1: your desk. In your desk, it's not horrible, it's not horrible.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be my desk. It would cause me a
Speaker 1: lot of problems. But but I see it and it
Speaker 1: doesn't offend me. But then there's some people where it's
Speaker 1: really like crazy pack rat and you feel like something
Speaker 1: wrong is going on here. They can do what they
Speaker 1: want to do. I know it sounds really hippy and dippy,
Speaker 1: free to be you and me, But there is some
Speaker 1: research to support my way of living. I'm sure there is.
Speaker 1: In his book Tim Harford, he talks about one study
Speaker 1: where researchers put people in different types of offices, giving
Speaker 1: them different levels of control over what the office looked like.
Speaker 1: So in one office it was completely austere. People had
Speaker 1: no control, but it was very clean, so you probably
Speaker 1: would have loved it. Yeah, that's my kind of office,
Speaker 1: and another office they got to decorate it the way
Speaker 1: they wanted to, and then another office they got to
Speaker 1: decorate the way they wanted to, and then the researchers
Speaker 1: would come in and take out all their decorations and
Speaker 1: put it back the way. That's so Obviously, employees hated
Speaker 1: that last one the most, of course, But the one
Speaker 1: that they did the best and that they were most
Speaker 1: productive and was the one where they had control over
Speaker 1: their space. Well, it's funny that you say control over
Speaker 1: their space, because in fact, personally, I could really care
Speaker 1: less what your desk looks like. But for me, control
Speaker 1: over my space means a clean and orderly workspace. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's hard for clean people to realize that
Speaker 1: control over my space means not really thinking about it
Speaker 1: at all. I guess the problem is more and more
Speaker 1: these days, we see a lot of open office spaces.
Speaker 1: We see a lot of share office spaces. In some cases,
Speaker 1: people don't even have their own desk anymore. Every day
Speaker 1: that you come in, you have to pick a spot,
Speaker 1: and so you're picking up a place that somebody was
Speaker 1: using before. It doesn't even really give you the opportunity
Speaker 1: to be messy. Yeah, there's a cool term for that
Speaker 1: called hot desking. Um. Yeah, So in that case, I
Speaker 1: think your desk can't get us messy as quickly. But
Speaker 1: that's the other issue, right right, which is something else
Speaker 1: I've written about. I've just found about every topic under
Speaker 1: the workplace. Um uh. It was a plea for people
Speaker 1: not to come to work if they're sick, of course,
Speaker 1: if they have paid time off to do so. Lots
Speaker 1: of people don't. But if you do, and you come
Speaker 1: to work when you're sick, when we work in these
Speaker 1: open offices, the germs spread so quickly. It has happened
Speaker 1: multiple times this fall where you can just see the
Speaker 1: people transferring it one by one and everyone outbreak. Yes,
Speaker 1: patient zero. And for those purposes, I think that's different
Speaker 1: than a messy desk that is absolutely healthy. Right, there's clutter,
Speaker 1: and then there's biological contamination. It's also really expensive for companies.
Speaker 1: In my story I talk about how presentee is um,
Speaker 1: which is showing up to work sick cost companies a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty billion dollars a year hundred with a B.
Speaker 1: That's a very big number. And it sucks, of course
Speaker 1: it does. So there's a continuum here of sorts. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a question of the messy desk. There's a you
Speaker 1: know you move along that you get into sort of
Speaker 1: the dirty desk, and how that can affect the health
Speaker 1: of the employees who worked there. So this isn't just
Speaker 1: a matter of how you like to organize your desk.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's part of it, but there's also this
Speaker 1: larger issue of maintaining a healthy workspace. To help us
Speaker 1: discuss these issues, we are going to chat with Jolie
Speaker 1: care who is an advice columnist, a cleaning expert, and
Speaker 1: the host of the podcast Ask a Clean Person. Thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us, Jolie, Hey, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: So how have you felt walking through our offices so far?
Speaker 1: Have you felt like they're pretty clean or is it messy?
Speaker 1: Very clean? It's very cool. I imagine that that lends
Speaker 1: itself to a lot of people taking a little extra
Speaker 1: pride in their desk. You know, people are house proud,
Speaker 1: and maybe they're going to get to that in a minute.
Speaker 1: But we're here to talk more about our workspaces and
Speaker 1: how we can keep them tidy and clean, which we
Speaker 1: can discuss maybe are two different things they are, Yes,
Speaker 1: why don't we actually jump right into that. Can you
Speaker 1: define for me the difference between those two words. Sure, So,
Speaker 1: tidy is more of a visual thing, right, It's having
Speaker 1: your papers stacked and squared up, and your pens put
Speaker 1: in their penholder and everything sort of lined up and
Speaker 1: arranged nicely, whereas clean is much more of germ and
Speaker 1: crumb and fingerprint type proposition. So the crumbs and the
Speaker 1: keyboard that is dirty, that is not untidy. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's also kind of untidy too, you see. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: may not see it. The receiver on the telephone that's
Speaker 1: not clean, but that may look tidy because it may
Speaker 1: be you know, placed and squared up, but the but
Speaker 1: the receiver is probably pretty pretty dirty. So I have
Speaker 1: a question about those two different things. Is tidy something
Speaker 1: we're not allowed to judge, but dirty is something we're
Speaker 1: allowed to judge. So if someone's desk isn't tidy, it's okay,
Speaker 1: that's a preference. But if someone's desk isn't clean, they're gross.
Speaker 1: Are we allowed to not everyone? Well, I'm not. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know that's how I feel. I'm just asking.
Speaker 1: I think that life is hard enough without judging people
Speaker 1: about their desk. So to give you a little bit
Speaker 1: of what you want. If your desk is not tidy,
Speaker 1: but it is clean, that is healthier. That's healthier for
Speaker 1: you and for your and for your colleagues. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about some of the risks of an
Speaker 1: unclean desk, right, So, if you think about in an
Speaker 1: open office situation in the wintertime, when everyone has their
Speaker 1: seasonal case of the sniffles, you think about how fast
Speaker 1: that goes around the office. One of the ways in
Speaker 1: which germs are spread that we all know about is
Speaker 1: is through human contact, through touching one another. So if
Speaker 1: you are a person who is not necessarily diligent about handwashing,
Speaker 1: then all your germs are going back onto your workspace.
Speaker 1: They're going to your keyboard, they're going to your phone receiver,
Speaker 1: they're going to everything that you touch. If someone then
Speaker 1: comes over to your desk and touches one of those things,
Speaker 1: they're transferring those germs onto themselves because they're touching it.
Speaker 1: So it's a health thing from that standpoint, and particularly
Speaker 1: when you're talking about an open office set up and
Speaker 1: that sort of constant spreading back and forth of the
Speaker 1: same nagging cold that everyone has had for five months.
Speaker 1: So we were just talking about, you know, custodial services
Speaker 1: within an office building, and like here, they can be exemplary,
Speaker 1: but oftentimes they do not touch anybody's workspace, right. They're
Speaker 1: vacuuming the common areas, they make sure the windows are clean, etcetera.
Speaker 1: As far as your desk and underneath it and around
Speaker 1: it is concerned, that is up to you. So I
Speaker 1: guess my question to you is what should I keep
Speaker 1: in my desk in my drawer that I should be
Speaker 1: using to maintain a if not tidy, at least clean
Speaker 1: and healthy work space. Sure, so a couple of things.
Speaker 1: People ask me a lot like that that question, and
Speaker 1: they say it sort of like what's what kind of
Speaker 1: kit should I have? And then when they say kit,
Speaker 1: they actually mean too different things, which is which is
Speaker 1: smart one? Which should I keep to clean my desk?
Speaker 1: And they also mean what should I keep to clean
Speaker 1: myself when I inevitably spill coffee down my blouse twenty
Speaker 1: minutes before meeting with the big boss. So there are
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things. I would say probably
Speaker 1: the number one thing, just because it's so versatile and
Speaker 1: it can be used for so much, is rubbing alcohol,
Speaker 1: good old rubbing alcohol. And you can actually get pre
Speaker 1: moistened alcohol whites, which are very convenient for in office.
Speaker 1: They come in a box. You can usually get like
Speaker 1: a box of a hundred or two hundred. They're incredibly inexpensive.
Speaker 1: They're individually packaged, you know, like little handy whites, and
Speaker 1: you can use those to clean your phone, your keyboard,
Speaker 1: the actual desk itself. You can also use that to
Speaker 1: take little stains off of your shirt when you dribble.
Speaker 1: Alcohol is a great stain remover. Yeah, it's a great
Speaker 1: had no idea. So here here's one more related to that.
Speaker 1: Hand sanitizer is made up almost entirely of alcohol. So
Speaker 1: if you don't have a bottle of rubbing alcohol or
Speaker 1: that seems weird to you to have around, and you
Speaker 1: don't have those whites, if you have hand sanitizer around,
Speaker 1: which most people do, and if you don't, probably your
Speaker 1: deskmate one over has some, you can use that for
Speaker 1: stain removal. Yep. It's particularly good on pens, which is
Speaker 1: in an office. I mean, I guess now we don't
Speaker 1: use pens quite as optim I still use pens, actually,
Speaker 1: you guys, I still use a paper calendar. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so different. It's just basically a thing new different. Now wait,
Speaker 1: can I just can I'd like to mention here that
Speaker 1: you talk about pre moistend alcohol wipes. I've actually seen
Speaker 1: these at our first aid kit, yes, that we keep
Speaker 1: on every floor of the building. Now, I'm not advocating
Speaker 1: that you go and you know, don't pill for the
Speaker 1: first don't pill for the first pinch, hey, but exactly,
Speaker 1: if it's an important meeting, maybe you'll find those alcohol
Speaker 1: wipes for free at a central location in your office exactly.
Speaker 1: And one other thing actually I mentioned since since we're
Speaker 1: sitting in a studio, Um, they are great for wiping
Speaker 1: off headphones. So we're in a studio where where there's
Speaker 1: a there shared headphones. UM. And I actually it's a
Speaker 1: surprise that people learned. I'm actually not a germaphobe. So
Speaker 1: it doesn't bother me to wear a pair of headphones
Speaker 1: that I know has been on someone else's head. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people that would bother. And so if
Speaker 1: you're a person who that kind of thing bothers, keep
Speaker 1: a couple of those wipes in your bag, your laptop case,
Speaker 1: your wallet, wherever, and then you have them and you
Speaker 1: can wipe things off, and you should always do in life.
Speaker 1: What makes you feel comfortable. If what makes you feel
Speaker 1: comfortable is wiping things off, by all means, if what
Speaker 1: makes you feel comfortable is not worrying about it, then
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. So this came up when we
Speaker 1: showed you my desk, um, and it is both messy
Speaker 1: and dirty, I would say, And it doesn't bother me,
Speaker 1: particularly in the day to day. I know it bothers
Speaker 1: some of my coworkers, but maybe more in a joking way.
Speaker 1: But I would like to be the type of person
Speaker 1: where things don't get messy so quickly. Okay, so there
Speaker 1: are two things. You know. You you were very good
Speaker 1: about teaing me up so I could really think about this,
Speaker 1: and I did think about it, and I and I
Speaker 1: asked to see your desk because I wanted to see
Speaker 1: exactly what we were working with, and it was not
Speaker 1: that bad. You did tell me that oftentimes you leave
Speaker 1: food around, and I'm gonna i will say, if there
Speaker 1: is a place where I'm going to get judgmental, it's
Speaker 1: a little bit about the leaving the food around because
Speaker 1: it can attract vermin. And I've worked in offices. I
Speaker 1: won't tell you which one it was. One day I
Speaker 1: walked into work and there's a huge cockroach like right
Speaker 1: near my desk at this very posh, white chee law firm.
Speaker 1: And it was because frankly, my coworkers have just been
Speaker 1: leaving food around. There's definitely a roach. Lawyer joke in
Speaker 1: there something and move on. But I just wanted to
Speaker 1: highlight that I would like to clarify that at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I throw out all the things
Speaker 1: from my day. Okay, that's good. I don't leave it overnight. Generally,
Speaker 1: it's just good office citizenship to be aware that, even
Speaker 1: if it doesn't bother you, that that it can create
Speaker 1: fall out for everybody else that's unpleasant. So here's here's
Speaker 1: my prescription for you. It's very easy. Do a big
Speaker 1: clean of the desk, to a really thorough clean. Start
Speaker 1: by getting rid of all of the trash. Then put
Speaker 1: everything in its place, Put files where they're supposed to go,
Speaker 1: put desk successories where they're supposed to go. Get rid.
Speaker 1: If you have ten thousand pens and you don't need them,
Speaker 1: get rid of the pens. You don't need that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Square everything up so it looks tidy. And
Speaker 1: then the final thing is to wipe everything down. So
Speaker 1: once you have an almost clear surface, then you can
Speaker 1: do your wiping. You can wipe the desk and the
Speaker 1: keyboard and the telephone receiver and all of that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And one issue that you had specifically with
Speaker 1: your desk was that you have your phone tucked behind
Speaker 1: a second monitor, and then you have things stacked in
Speaker 1: front of the monitor, which means you can't actually get
Speaker 1: to your phone. So I would say just moving your
Speaker 1: phone out. It's almost like you don't want to use.
Speaker 1: Some may say that I avoid Well, I do love
Speaker 1: talking on the phone and I need to, but I
Speaker 1: avoid the phone because I get a lot of unwanted
Speaker 1: phone calls. I hear that I hate the telephone too,
Speaker 1: So start with that. And and here we are. We're
Speaker 1: just about at the start of new year, so that
Speaker 1: might be a good early January thing for you or
Speaker 1: late December. Start your new year off already with a
Speaker 1: clean desk. And then this is the most important part.
Speaker 1: You're gonna put a calendar reminder on your calendar. Every
Speaker 1: Friday or Wednesday or whatever your day is, put a
Speaker 1: ten minute block of time, and you're gonna get a
Speaker 1: calendar reminder at that time that does time to clean
Speaker 1: your desk, and so once a week you're just going
Speaker 1: to tidy everything up, and that's how you are going
Speaker 1: to have a tidy desk going forward. I was saying, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I do a lot of this, but usually it's once
Speaker 1: every three months, not once a week. Right, And if
Speaker 1: you have that, here's the thing. It's actually not even
Speaker 1: gonna take you the ten minutes, especially if you're doing
Speaker 1: it every single week. It's gonna it's probably a three
Speaker 1: minute proposition to just square papers up, get rid of
Speaker 1: things you don't need to, a quick wipe down, and
Speaker 1: that's it. It will end up also then over time
Speaker 1: becoming so wrote for you that you'll find that you
Speaker 1: don't even strew your papers anymore. They just go back
Speaker 1: into their place. You will sort of trick yourself into
Speaker 1: becoming someone like me who naturally just puts things in
Speaker 1: their place. That will eventually become natural for you. So
Speaker 1: that's what I would do, Just make a little calendar reminder.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. Yeah, all happens when the power and
Speaker 1: potential of every employee and leader in your workforce is
Speaker 1: released and corn Fairy can get you there by aligning
Speaker 1: your people to your strategy, attracting, developing, engaging, and reward
Speaker 1: them to reach new heights. With corn Ferry, you get
Speaker 1: a partner who truly understands people, leadership and the new
Speaker 1: landscape of work, a partner who knows how to take
Speaker 1: your business up. Learn more at corn Ferry dot com
Speaker 1: slash up. Since you are an advice calumnist, we thought
Speaker 1: it'd be fun to ask you about some of the
Speaker 1: more interesting workplace related questions you've had. Yes, I get
Speaker 1: a lot of them. So let's just start out at
Speaker 1: the at the most juvenile. Let's work a little bit
Speaker 1: blue here. I get a lot of questions about farting
Speaker 1: into office chairs, and I laugh every single time I've
Speaker 1: got one. It just makes me how that people email
Speaker 1: me with these questions. Question what do they want to
Speaker 1: know about? How? Why can you do for them? I
Speaker 1: can tell them to go buy a candle lights al
Speaker 1: is basically what I can see for them. Um. So
Speaker 1: what it is is oftentimes people will say, like, there's
Speaker 1: there was one question I pulled for you guys to
Speaker 1: take a look at. That was someone who works in
Speaker 1: a call center where there's sort of a constant rotation
Speaker 1: of employees coming in and out, and they sit at stations,
Speaker 1: but it's not their own desk, so the chair is
Speaker 1: a shared chair among many people. And and presumably there's
Speaker 1: probably a fairly high turnover in this kind of job
Speaker 1: as well. And this person was saying, you know, I
Speaker 1: sit in this chair and it smells like a fart.
Speaker 1: Clearly someone who has you know, the shift after mine
Speaker 1: is a farter. And what do I do about the
Speaker 1: smell of this chair? So that I've gotten that question
Speaker 1: more than once. As I like to tell people, if
Speaker 1: you ever feel alone in this world, come read my columns,
Speaker 1: because I can promise you that any problem you have,
Speaker 1: someone else in this world has had. I've had three
Speaker 1: separate people asked me how to clean up a pound
Speaker 1: of butter that has melted into their car seat. Happens
Speaker 1: three people. Yeah, You're never alone in this world. And
Speaker 1: the chair farter is another good example of that one
Speaker 1: I do get. I do get a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about out the sort of like the kit what should
Speaker 1: I keep um which I don't think I finished answering
Speaker 1: that question. I just got so rubbing, so derailed on
Speaker 1: the rubbing alcohol fron because I'm so excited about it.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what My other things are microfiber cloth,
Speaker 1: which is excellent for wiping monitors. It's great for wiping
Speaker 1: a mouse. You can use it to wipe off a
Speaker 1: phone after you've used a rubbing alcohol, great for your
Speaker 1: cell phone. All of that. So microfiber is excellent. Canned air,
Speaker 1: which is also called compressed air, is excellent. It's specifically
Speaker 1: used for cleaning a keyboard, so all those crumbs and
Speaker 1: the hair and all of that good stuff that that
Speaker 1: gets jammed up in our keyboard. One other thing that
Speaker 1: most offices will have, but if your office does not
Speaker 1: have it is a great idea to keep a little
Speaker 1: bottle of dish soap because dish soap will cure a
Speaker 1: lot of ills when it comes to say that coffee
Speaker 1: that you spilled on yourself before the big meeting. Rubbing
Speaker 1: alcohol is also great for that too. But the dish
Speaker 1: sip is is also a great stain remover. And you
Speaker 1: know it's just good to have around if you carry
Speaker 1: a travel mug in and you can wash that out
Speaker 1: for yourself. You were talking about stain removal um. Obviously
Speaker 1: there are a lot of products out there, like, you know,
Speaker 1: tied pens and shout wipes. Are they worth it? Or yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got a tied pen in my bag. Absolutely absolutely yea.
Speaker 1: I was at a lunch meeting two weeks ago and
Speaker 1: my one of the women I was with, a dribbled
Speaker 1: soy sauce all down her cream colored blouse. And I
Speaker 1: looked at it and I said, oh, dear Alex, we've
Speaker 1: got dribbles. Hold on please, And I pulled the tide
Speaker 1: pen out and rescue took care of it. So all
Speaker 1: that stuff is great. I think I think actually you
Speaker 1: should just be leaving a tide pen in your pen cup.
Speaker 1: It's a great, great thing have. That sounds great, well,
Speaker 1: Jolie Care, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I hope so, I hope.
Speaker 1: I hope Becca will be cleaner for it. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get some some of those rubbing alcohol wipes from our
Speaker 1: first aid kit and my time my keyboard. At least
Speaker 1: I will cause abstraction. You can go get the wipes.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna give you you my phone number
Speaker 1: and I'm going to have you text me an after
Speaker 1: photo yeah, we'll tweet it. That would be great. Take
Speaker 1: before and afters was getting a desk makeover. My main
Speaker 1: takeaway from our conversation with Jolie as a messy person
Speaker 1: was that if you want to change, you can, and
Speaker 1: that's something that I have a slight arch to do.
Speaker 1: I think I wish I were more naturally inclined to
Speaker 1: keep the desk tidy so that over time it didn't
Speaker 1: get as messy so quickly, and she gave me a
Speaker 1: good framework for that and suggested if I do set
Speaker 1: a reminder every week to do some meetening up, it
Speaker 1: will become second nature. It would be nice to have
Speaker 1: that second nature that you have. Maybe not as extreme
Speaker 1: as you. I don't. You don't want it as bad
Speaker 1: as I do, I don't think, but yes, some degree
Speaker 1: of it might be if it seems interesting repealing, it
Speaker 1: might be nice to have. Yeah, I'm not so extreme
Speaker 1: in my devotion to my messy desk. I'm just defensive
Speaker 1: of it. Well, I think that, you know, when we
Speaker 1: talk about control of your desk, whether it's messy or clean,
Speaker 1: I think that it's some way to maintain a little
Speaker 1: bit of individuality in a cubical form. You want to
Speaker 1: make it yours, and so everybody is sort of distinctive
Speaker 1: in that respect. Some people want to clean, some people
Speaker 1: want it messy, but all of those ways are expressions
Speaker 1: of themselves. Because in the workplace, to some degree, not
Speaker 1: to get too bleak about this, but our individuality continues
Speaker 1: to get sort of subsumed and subsumed and subsumed. And
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's not even individuality. It's just a
Speaker 1: feeling that you are an adult and can make decisions
Speaker 1: over your life in a way that is good for
Speaker 1: you and good for your employer. I had an office
Speaker 1: once that was a bunch of cubicles, and the architect
Speaker 1: of the building had said, no one can ever put
Speaker 1: anything on top of the bookcases that separate the cubicles
Speaker 1: from one another. You can't put any plants, you can't
Speaker 1: put in anything. And this architect, by the way, it
Speaker 1: was Renzo Piano, famous world famous architect. It was like, well,
Speaker 1: Renzo is not here, so we're putting plants up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and just it's kind of like when somebody tells
Speaker 1: you not to do something, you want to do it. Right.
Speaker 1: We are all at some level right, and now it's
Speaker 1: time for half baked takes, half fake takes. Do you
Speaker 1: have a sort of half formed opinion or thought that
Speaker 1: you would like to share with the group. I do,
Speaker 1: and it's winter time related my least favorite season out
Speaker 1: of the four and I have a lot of thoughts
Speaker 1: about wintertime. So you get into the office, you're wearing
Speaker 1: a coat, you take it off, you get cold again,
Speaker 1: you have an urge to put it back on. Don't
Speaker 1: do that because if you go outside again and you've
Speaker 1: been wearing your coat inside this whole time, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna feel a toasty warm You're gonna feel cold. You
Speaker 1: need to acclimate to the inside temperature. Right, you don't
Speaker 1: get the benefit of the coat. You gotta take off
Speaker 1: your coat and just adjust. I have a similar theory
Speaker 1: about why I have a queen sized bed at home
Speaker 1: so that when you go to hotels, the king is
Speaker 1: a real treat. That is a similar half bag take.
Speaker 1: There you go. Now, I actually do have a different
Speaker 1: half pig take, but given the theme of this episode
Speaker 1: has been somewhat sort of home eck. I have a
Speaker 1: little tip for people. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: like to bring bananas to the office, because of course
Speaker 1: they are the world's most perfect food. One thing you
Speaker 1: can do that I just recently learned if you take
Speaker 1: some saran wrap and wrap the stem of your banana,
Speaker 1: it will actually help keep it fresher longer. Have you
Speaker 1: done this. I have done this, and I've seen that
Speaker 1: it works. It will not let your bananas last indefinitely.
Speaker 1: Nature is still nature, but the stem is where the
Speaker 1: discoloration begins, and many of the gases that cause the
Speaker 1: discoloration begin at that stem. So if you wrap it
Speaker 1: in plastic, it's not going to affect the banana as quickly.
Speaker 1: I like my bananas pretty green, so yeah, Well, my
Speaker 1: problem is when you buy banana is oftentimes you bring
Speaker 1: them home and they last about six hours and then
Speaker 1: they're brown. Yeah I wouldn't. I don't like that. So
Speaker 1: wrapping plastic and that was half baked takes. Half baked takes.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to game Plan today. You can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Sam Grobart and I'm at rs Greenfield.
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