Hoarder in the office

[Bobajobs]

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

We’re

Set your stand out very clearly at the beginning. Get some of the bright blue or green masking tape from Homebase/B&Q etc and use it to mark a line right down the middle, while the desk is empty.

Point out that you will need your half of the desk and if any of his crud spills over the line then you will be pushing putting it back onto his side asap. Likewise, you are not expecting your stuff to fall over the line.

Every time you get back to your desk, check the blue line and carefully move everything of his back onto his side. As it gets worse and he tries to push more stuff over, push it back harder and less carefully... And keep reminding him if it is an issue that he is causing you stress and reducing your ability to do your work properly on your own desk. If he needs a bigger desk he needs to find a different office, he can't just steal your desk from you.

I don't see why your minimalist tendencies should take priority over his tendency to keep things. If you each have a desk and equal storage space I don't think it's anything to do with you. You sound a bit of a bully IMHO.

Probably depends on the size of the company. Anything large, this is an HR thing as clearly your colleague has a mental health problem which is probably impacting in other ways on their performance. It's also a health hazard in various ways - not just fire, but whatever old food, tea dregs etc are lurking there. I'd be tempted to make an official complaint of some kind as your line manager seems incapable of dealing. It's absolutely unfair for your professional work environment to be disturbed in this way.

I spent half a day throwing stuff out of people's desk drawers just before Christmas, full of old reports and general rubbish. But yours sounds much worse.

spent half a day throwing stuff out of people's desk drawers just before Christmas, full of old reports and general rubbish. But yours sounds much worse.

Why were you going into other people's desk drawers???

If he does take stuff with him, then a good tip is to tape boxes completely shut and write the date on them. If they're still sealed in a pre-arranged number of months, then it can be assumed there's nothing in there of any value and they can be chucked with a clear conscience.

This is assuming he wants to cut down on the quantities of hoarded stuff of course. Most do tho, it's just making the effort and decision to get the stuff out that's the hurdle.

Why were you going into other people's desk drawers???

A fair question. We have a clean desk policy that extends to drawers - reasonable personal stuff, of course (not the dirty laundry that one now ex-employee used to keep there) but not anything that has just been put in a desk to avoid filing properly or thrown away. Over the past dozen years w've been really lucky and only had a tiny number of problem people but every one of them had drawers full of stuff which should either have been thrown away or put on shelves so that colleagues could use. He was asked to clear his stuff down before going on Christmas leave and didn't, so I did it (I am their manager if that helps).

Like I said, personal stuff, of course. But not 5 year old reports that are online, old fag packets or, worse of all, important info that others may need.

Other people shouldn't have to work near someone's waste.

This is assuming he wants to cut down on the quantities of hoarded stuff of course. Most do tho, it's just making the effort and decision to get the stuff out that's the hurdle.

It's not about making the effort. It's a deeper-routed problem than laziness. Employers shouldn't need to be social workers but there is something amiss here.

Good luck OP, you are right to be unhappy about being forced to work in an unprofessional and probably unhygienic environment.

I had someone in my office hoard office supplies.

I came in as the new manager and wasn’t very happy when I found she had about £500 worth of printer ink cartridges in her drawer, as a business we had very little money and she really didn’t need them.

A week later I found out the office used the stationary supplier book like their own Christmas list ordering whatever they wanted for themselves.

Ahhh I was popular the day I put a stop to that!!

Could some of his boxes get ‘lost’ in the move?

If your manager has commented on his house it sounds like your colleague has an actual problem.

Rather than dealing with him in any way I'd focus on your manager - she needs to enforce your space being kept clear at all times.

Remind him that the paperwork is the property of the company and not his , and as such you need to sort it out.
If the pamphlets are issued by your company then the address is going to be out of date.

Employer is one of the biggest in the UK (possibly is the biggest)....we have HR

I’m not a bully. I can understand why you might think this in none of my business. But I don’t want to have to dig through someone else’s junk to find notes from three months ago when they should have been scanned and thrown away on the same day all because “he likes the paper copies”

I have someone like this in my office! She unearthed some papers from months ago that were all over her desk and no joke, found a liquefied orange. bork

You need to keep appealing to the manager, she is bending completely his way and that's not on. You need to say it is going to affect your working environment and your mental health, tidy place is a tidy mind and all that. If it was me I'd do it one day after everyone went home and just deal with the fall out because I couldn't deal with all that crap everywhere. I had a work colleague like this and I just threw it all out when she wasn't there apart from anything personal and in the end she admitted it was nicer all clean and tidy. If it's such a big company I'd tell your manager if it's not done before the move you'll have no choice but to go to HR or go above their head, your manager is obviously not taking you seriously!

In a previous job, we got around this by allocating staff with a box. The box had to be closed, everything else went in the bin.
To stop the hoarding, we also had a quarterly shred/chuck/sort your shit out day.

Shared desk, get something to mark the middle. Then from the new move, anything that goes onto your space, push it back over the marker.

Not scanning what he should have is a separate issue from keeping a paper copy on his desk.
If your job is being made harder by him not doing his, push that to your manager. Having had similar issues sometimes, what's probably needed is someone to help him go through everything kindly, keeping a copy of 2001 leaflet for a reference archive and binning the others, going through email to keep only final messages in any chain from over a year ago, etc.
And try referring him to the Employer Assistance programme that large employers have.

Separating out aesthetics from not doing his job is going to be vital for everyone.

You must go back to Facilities and HR. There’s nothing you can do.

I’m annoyed at you manager on your behalf, though. How could he/she have let it get to this stage. Scrap paper?! Ffs.

Try the GDPR route for hoarding of anything with personal data on it (and alert them up the emails if you want) The whole company needs to be on top of it by May 18 to meet the new regs.

Your manager sounds incompetent to be honest. This individual clearly has issues but they need to be tactfully managed and not pandered to.

The more crap people have, the more accommodation is needed and the more it then costs. We have just moved offices, and we had a bin it and archive it campaign before to minimise what was moved. There were strict instructions about what could be taken, some people (not as bad as your colleague) moved stuff that shouldn’t have gone, but their manager was on it and it was sorted the other end. It is also about a pleasant office environment for everyone.

I agree, Facilities are your friends!

Now the issue of scrap paper is where I'm on colleague's side. IME there actually is no such thing as a paperless office and you do need something to scribble down phone messages, write reminders to yourself, note points that occur when you're reading something, make notes/doodle during meetings etc etc. I keep scrap paper for that purpose and haven't needed a notepad in years.

Clear desk policy. If your work is actually confidential you have an excellent excuse. We have to have clear desks, in case a plumber comes to fix the loos, or even our own IT people (although haven't actually seen one in ages, it's all remote now). It may slow productivity while people get used to it but will improve it in the long run.

When it 'Migrates' to Your side of the shared table, Bin it.

((((Hugs))) If you want them. I feel for you [Mum was a hoarder]