Office cabinet

On the opposite side of my office is a six foot cabinet. It is a dull dark brown, steel cabinet with a single lock at the top. On the top are two things, meaningful toys. The first is a Superman bust, which has the S replaced with an L, from my boss who periodically calls me Leanman. This should be obvious, but it is not for my physical fitness, but rather my use of lean tools in project development. Beside the man of steel is Webkinz hedgehog, which is meant to resemble a BHAG. A BHAG is the mythical mascot adopted by Blue Cross to symbolize our Big Hairy Audacious Goal. The only their things on the outside of this cabinet are two paper hung on the side with rare earth magnets. The are both one sheets timelines for big projects. The one up top is for Performance Transformation, a project to improve what we can do with the people and money we have available. The second one is for an audit and update for a large group on the west side of the state, this project just finished up, and as often happens we are fighting back the trails of changes which follow the project because the group see this as an open door to cram everything through they can. We are directing them back to the standard process, but the phone still rings.

If I open the doors of this cabinet, I am faced with two shelves. They are mostly empty since my move not this office, in fact the bottom shelf has nothing on it. I remember how just a couple months ago, it was full of dated project binders, but these have since been emptied and those in good conditions, stored for reuse. The right half of the top shelf has a couple different things. The first in a mini-flowerpot with a gold band around the terra cotta vessel, which has a pink foam heart proclaiming Jesus Cares. The flower in the pot, is actually an ink pin wrapped in green, with leaves and topped with a yellow flower. This was a gift to me from my daughters half a dozen years ago. Behind this pot are a small collection of coffee cup. Most of these have been used at some point, but now they are back-ups to my usual cup, a Main Street Baptist Church cup. Both of the cups on the shelf are Blue Cross cups, one blue and one white. On the left side of the shelf is a black box marked Millennium Masterpieces. It is a 30 CDs of compositions by Beethoven, Bach and other classical masters. I periodically pull these out when I really need to have deep focus, but much less since my introduction to Pandora. Underneath this box is a stack of various awards I have received while I have worked here. With limited space, there is no room to hang them and most of them are not particularly remarkable. I keep them because I am proud. I leave them in the cabinet because I do the best I can to hide my pride.

The three filing drawers beneath the doored shelves, have also been misused since the move, a situation I hope to rectify, but don't have any set timeline to do it. So, it could be a while. The top drawer is absolutely packed full of plastic three ring binders of while, blue, red and black. Most of these have a plastic cover, which allows you to slip a page describing the contents. These are empty, as are the binders. They are here for my upcoming projects. I suspect I actually have more of these than I need, but I find it hard to throw out a binder with a clean exterior which has rings the still close tight and even. This is a drawer with promise. The middle drawer is currently empty and I have not yet decided what belongs there. I am happy for the space and I imagine it will fill as I close projects. The bottom drawer is a brightly colored jumble. You can not see it, but the bottom of the draw is completely full of mice and keyboards, power strips and computer cables, mouse pads and other spare parts. The reason you can see these thing is because the are covered with other more commonly used trinkets. There is the Christmas bowl and tray, which became part of the Whoville we created in December. Along the back are a couple rolls of different colored wrapping paper, which has been used more for decoration, than wrapping. I am not a fan of wrapping, it is why they make gift bags. On that thought, there are also a couple different gift bags in here. There is a plastic Twinkie man, from the first area I worked in here, after I referred to someone as having the mental equivalent of a Twinkie. The comment was misplaced, but I still like the toy. There is a brightly colored snake and brown spider. There are playing cards and empty tins, which I have a small collection of. There is an unopened blue slinky, which I will probably give away, but I haven't had the right moment and a blue and white umbrella.

There is more in there than I thought, but less than I will probably have at the end of this year. It seems in many ways, the spaces around me fill with things that tell the little stories that are easy to forget.

Location:Civic Center Dr,Southfield,United States