Hoarder in the office

[Bobajobs]

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

We’re

Rollypoly100 I used to know somebody like that but it wasn’t a manager it was a member of staff. She used to think she owned the stationary you’d think she was paying for it! People would literally sneak in to get stuff out it was ridiculous and they even started asking her permission!?! This woman was scary!

"Antagonsing someone with a mental health condition by doing something that you know will cause them significant distress,"

You have no idea whether this man has a mental health condition or not, or what the diagnosis would be if he did, and what he would find (un)helpful if he was struggling.

You can't assume everyone who lives in a cluttered, squalid environment has classic hoarding disorder.

He might have ADHD (for ex) and he may be delighted to return to a tidy, organised working environment. You don't know.

We had a stationery clerk who would not issue a new ball point until you showed the corpse of the previous one. There were drastic changes when he went too far and took the stationery cupboard key with him on holiday.

Yes, our manager is on sick leave and has the key. It's been asked for and she has ignored us. So, get this - we've broken into the cupboard! We will get the lock fixed when she returns and when she does with much huffing and complaining. It's not her property ffs and the level of control she wields is frankly over the top.

So, get this - we've broken into the cupboard!

Brilliant 😂

@meredintofpandiculation what if the corpse couldn’t be accounted for?

Oh I’m sure the stationary power freaks get a kick out of it. I wonder if the taking the key on annual leave was deliberate!?! They maybe can’t bare to be without a reminded of ‘their’ supply cubby.

reminder

what if the corpse couldn’t be accounted for? You had to buy a replacement out of your own money In practice, those of us who out-ranked him used to just breeze in and say "I'll take three of these while I'm at it" and ignore his horror-struck expression. Poor guy - the stationery cupboard was the only part of his working life that he had any control of, while the rest of us had the sort of freedom over our working lives that today's graduates can only dream about.

In our defence, we had an expenses regime that said we could use official ball point pens, or we could claim blue black ink for fountain pens, but we couldn't claim for black ink. So we did get quite petty.

(Spits out tea in horror) they made you buy the replacement! They’d have to let me pay in monthly instalments as I used to leave pens all over the building and wasn’t to be trusted with them! I had a lot of fatalities also.

Wonder if the guy surveyed the cracks on a fatality to see if it was a fault od the manufacturing or the user when pondering his decision on whether to replace!?!

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Op it sounds horrific. But as this clearly isn't just a work issue for this person, you are going to have to be very clear about boundaries in your shared space.

Both of you have to have an equal amount of storage space to arrange as you see fit. Be it filing cabinets, shelving. It doesn't matter. A tape line down the middle of the desk/shelving is an excellent idea because you both get to organise your personal space within that defined boundary. They can have everything everywhere if that helps them work. You can have yours tidied away if that works. But both need to adhere to whatever clear desk policy/shared information resources your company lays out.

However, I would not be pushing things back into their space. If it encroaches onto your space, you reserve the right to deal with it in line with company policy, ie file/scan/bin.

By all means keeping scrap paper is good, as it saves money and resources. I used to use it instead of endless post it's for taking phone messages as long as there was nothing confidential on the other side.

Is it possible to have a small shredder in your shared office to keep on top of hoarding?

But your manager also needs to manage this person effectively.

Pamphlets which are out of date they should be insisting go.

If you do have a clear desk policy, for cleaners etc. Then your manager needs to use whatever performance and development scheme you use to record that it's not being done and make it a target to achieve.

But if their house is as bad, it sounds like they need more professional help than work can give them sadly.

PasstheStarmix Yes of course he did! And checked to see whether it was truly empty or whether you could be expected to use it for another few days.

I worked with a hoarder once. It's an interesting and extraordinarily frustrating condition that does generally impact on other parts of office life. Not being able to let go of things tends to extend to other areas, like not being able to meet deadlines or sign off on projects despite doing far beyond normal hours. Is that the case here OP? I'm afraid, it's a very hard condition to treat successfully.

meredintofpandiculation Haha maybe it just needed alittle careful rolling on a piece of ‘specially’ kept a side paper in the stationary cupboard. ‘Oh you’re good to go.’ The guy sounds like he’d have been better suited working in WHS surrounded by stationary.

Honestly having a DF who is a massive hoarder. They will notice ANYTHING you move or dispose of

Honestly having a DF who is a massive hoarder. They will notice ANYTHING you move or dispose of Are you saying you wouldn't notice if someone started stealing your stuff?

Gdpr will do away with a lot of this. Anything containing personal details can only be kept for the purpose of processing and then the retention policy applies which provides the legal retention period for document types. Unless you can prove this hardcopy info is safe and secure, it contravenes the new regulation. Go to ico website and gather ammunition to put in front of the boss During the move, could a few boxes get lost? If not personal info, I wonder if he would notice?
Your boss needs to put her big girl pants on and say NO.

Oh and if you are a biggie, you will have a data protection officer or someone who owns this inside the business. Ring them expressing your concerns about data security and then leave it..

I would definitely not be interfering physically it's his "hoard". Sounds definitely like there are MH issues there given the comments from your manager, which is perhaps why they're trying to kick it into the long grass rather than deal with your complaints.

Personally I would email your manager and say that you feel that the hoard is encroaching on your own workspace, affecting your working environment and causing issues between you personally. At the very least you would expect that a desk divider be supplied and that efforts are made to help your colleague deal with or at least limit his hoard to the area immediately around his desk. Don't make it personal, but I think you need to make a more formal attempt to raise it. Often people don't realise how mess/chaos around you can effect your state of mind, especially in work. I know I feel a lot more focused coming in to a clear desk as opposed to the usual bomb site.

Please don't tell me that you nor anyone else leaves confidential information on desks after people have gone home. Surely he must be struggling for space in drawers by now if he won't throw anything out?

Confidential information left out on desk is a breach of policy where I work and can result in a warning. It all has to be securely locked away.

Confidential info is dealt with, scanned on to a shared drive and then hard copy sent back to main paperwork archives off site (so there is always a hard copy in case of IT fuck up).

As an example he will take a phone call and record it all on scrap paper. Then do the normal stuff but keep the scrap paper. Piles and piles of the bloody stuff. Anyone outside the organisation wouldn’t understand the info but we can. He keeps them just “in case”. I’ve never got to the bottom of in case of what?!

Diaries and message books. We’re supposed to put them in confidential waste as soon as they are full. He has boxes of them under his desk going back to 1997. Again “just in case”.

Master copies of policy’s we haven’t used for years. Out of date phone directories. The list of fax numbers taped to the wall (we haven’t had a fax or faxed anything in YEARS). I pointed out we didn’t need it anymore (communal pin board) he took it down and taped it back up on his wall space.

If it is a psychological problem your colleague has, I think your manager needs to consult occupational health as to the best way to deal with this.

Ultimately, the things he is hoarding are the property of your company, not the colleague, so your manager could override him and throw them away but it sounds as though the colleague might struggle to cope with a drastic approach. This is something your manager needs to take ownership of, though, and to seek help in the approach to take if needs be.