The ‘Boo-Radley’ spot
II have made a promise to myself. If ever rise to the upper echelons of management in an office setting I will not eradicate the Boo-Radley spot. It’s hilarious. I also don’t think I could. Boo-Radley spots are organic and likely crop up regardless of policy. Instead, I will place a camera by it and get an origin story for each and every object.
have been working in offices for at least 25 years now. Every one of them is rather different in their levels of awkwardness and weird cultures, but I have found one similarity with them all. A bizarre common denominator of office culture.
In every single one of these places, and I suppose all the others I have yet to visit throughout this great land, there exists a table, shelf, or ledge that I like to call a “Boo Radley” spot. That is, a place where people discreetly put random junk they don’t want on offer to their coworkers, gratis. They are almost like a shrine to some office god that grants the worshipper a feeling of accomplishment or charity even though 99% of this garbage wouldn’t be accepted by even the most desperate of souls.
Sometimes there is food. Sometimes used makeup samples. Old socks. Maybe fishing line, or decades-old magazines. Even washed out jars and containers. All of these donations appear silently, and most often anonymously. And as quickly and as silently as the objects appear, they disappear, usually within a day.
I have investigated this. I thought that perhaps these random objects were being thrown away. Perhaps a person was too lazy to toss something in the trash can and just left it there without fear of consequence. I have found no evidence that could support that theory. I’ve checked trash cans, perhaps even in bathrooms I wasn’t allowed to go into, to confirm. No similar contents or offerings.
Which means there is a real person that deposits washed-out olive jars and margarine tubs and there is another person that takes them of their own volition. Let me just say this for the world to hear. If you are ever so desperate you need someone’s old olive jars as your own, let me know and I will buy you a jar of olives and let you keep the contents.
There was an occasion where I actually caught one of these Boo Radleys depositing their offering and used the opportunity to figure out why they do this. The person was depositing half of a loaf of discount bread that’s plastic packaging was shredded at one end. I asked what this was and why. The person explained they had set a frozen loaf of bread out to thaw and their cat attacked
I it (at least what they assumed was their cat, could have been a raccoon). “I removed all the bread the cat touched, but then I realized it wasn’t good for my diabetes... figured someone here might could use it.”
Wouldn’t you know it, within a few hours, like all objects on this table do, the bag had disappeared. No sign of it in a trash can. Not in a cubicle. Not in a bathroom. Someone had taken the cat-raccoon bread and presumably consumed it.
What is it about these places that make people take things they would not ordinarily take in the real world? Is it the thrill of something being free? Is it a game of Russian roulette with your digestive system?
I have made a promise to myself. If I ever rise to the upper echelons of management in an office setting I will not eradicate the Boo-Radley spot. It’s hilarious. I also don’t think I could. Boo-Radley spots are organic and likely crop up regardless of policy. Instead, I will place a camera by it and get an origin story for each and every object.
I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but somewhere in there is the secret of the universe.