Hoarder in the office

[Bobajobs]

AIBU that the manager should be being more firm with him?

We’re

Sorry was trying to close annoying ad!

We’re moving to new offices (smaller space for everyone) and he is refusing to get rid of years worth of junk. I tried throwing away a box of old pamphlets and some catalogues (out of date) and he went and got them out of the recycling because they might be useful...he has boxes of “scrap paper”, internal envelopes (we’re mostly paper free) and all this crap is coming with us.

Manager seems to not know how to handle it and I have to share a workspace at the new office. I hate clutter!

Send round a fire hazard mail limiting how much paper you are allowed to take.

His desk is piled high with shit. Some of it is years old. But it “might be useful”. Old office ext directory’s which are all on the intranet. Broken box files. The list goes on.

The pamphlets etc aren’t even “his” they were on the shelves in the office

Can’t you sneak in in the middle of the night or at the weekend and throw it all away?

Alternatively, you should all have an allocated space for your stuff and if he can’t fit within his allocated space, the stuff goes.

I can’t stand hoarders, they annoy the shit out of me.

... or ask your manager to introduce Hot Desking where you are not allowed any possessions at all.

Hot deskig wouldn’t work, we all have really confidential stuff on our desks/drawers/PCs.

They annoy the shit out of me, his face when he came back in the office with this old dusty box of crap

The fire email is quite good!

And ink stamps. At least 4/5 on his desk. We don’t EVEN USE THEM ANYMORE

To be fair I’m more pissed off at the manager not being firmer with him and telling him he can’t take it. He hasn’t even started packing, I asked him when it was going to start and he just said “well it’s all coming, it just needs to go in boxes”

You could always chuck a small pile out every day, so he doesn’t notice. A box file on day, pile of pamphlets another day...

If your office is big enough to have one I think hr might need to get involved here - sounds like this individual is struggling a bit with the move based on what you said. While annoying for you it sounds like this person may be mentally ill. You could wait for your boss to do something but I wouldn’t consider it out of line for you to have a word if you are seeing what’s going on.

When we moved offices twice in as many months the commercial removals company delivered individual moving boxes for each member of staff. They were about a foot wide and deep and about 2 and a half foot long. They had to be able to close flat otherwise they wouldn't stack once loaded onto the removals van. Perhaps you could get the removal company to give you his so that he can see what he has to deal with.

Yes i agree with leinill. Get rid gradually.

We have loads of confidential stuff and we have to hot desk

elf n safety, backed up by a no-nonsense facilities manager, are your friends

If it’s on his desk, it’s not really anything to do with you is it? Is he going to be taking up all the communal space too? I would just concentrate on the fact you need e.g. clear floor space and room for actually important shared resources on the shared storage. Ignore how much shit he likes to spread over his desk.

I would suggest a clear desk policy. Throw it all away the next time he has a day off.

I agree with MrsMT, one box each and it has to be able to close.

I work with a group of hoarders and I just can’t cope with the sheer amount of stuff, it makes me itch just thinking about it. I have a 4 hour shift a week without them on duty and I just bin the lot of it. A few weeks ago I filled 6 bin bags of rubbish in a couple of hours.
All our waste is confidential and has to go in red bags, they are bigger than a regular bin bag too so there was probably 9 black bags worth of shit.
We’re not in an office though.

We will be sharing a big desk divided down the middle

I don’t want to look at his piles of crap all day (which will slowly migrate to my desk). The communal shelves are now a quarter his “personal files” which have big labels saying

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL MR X on them

It’s all just junk! Food and hygenie certificate from 2001 anyone? Nobody needs 500 poly pockets which we will never use. It’s a PITA

I tried speaking with our manager today. She just said “god you should see his house if you think this is bad”

My boss is like this
Sometimes I wonder if the fire brigade could have a word.

Toads...we already do have one. Completely unenforced as he has a fit if anyone moves anything on his desk. He needs it all right there.

His email inbox makes me cry over 10000 emails which he “can’t” delete

You should have spent the last year quietly throwing stuff away one item at a time. Make that your mission for next year.

Why is his inbox your concern?

The facilities people who are managing the move are probably the best bet. They looked horrified when they came in to take an inventory!