New Job's Resolutions

I'm getting a good workout as I gradually clear my desk and locker of all the stuff I've accumulated in the last two and a half years. Bags and bags of shoes, text books and all kinds of other stuff are dutifully being loaded onto my bike and hauled up the hill every night.

I've never been a tidy person, and my workspace is testament to that.

BUT I want to make a good impression in my new job. So I resolve that:

• I will keep my desk and personal workspace tidy. If that involves bringing in the relevant pair of shoes every day and then carrying them home, then that's what I'll do. I will not keep two pairs of shoes under my desk and four in my locker where they fall out onto my toes every time I open the door.


• I will put all paper items into carefully labelled folders instead of piling them up in a stack of in-trays. Trays just convert a horizontal mess to a vertical mess.


• I will keep my cycling panniers discreetly closed while they are under my desk, rather than leaving the tops open to display all my sweaty cycling and gym clothes.


• I will go for proper lunch breaks instead of eating at my desk and getting crumbs down the gaps in my keyboard.


• I will purge the following words and phrases from my work place vocabulary, at least until they know me better: dude, dude that's awesome, whatever, that's retarded, that sucks, who's going for beer on Friday?

I have one more week in which to get into good habits in my old job. My desk is decluttering nicely, but it is not helpful that people who hear the big news are prone to greeting me with "Dude! You're leaving??!! That's awesome!!"