To not want Xmas decorations on my desk

[Overandunderit]

I know this sounds really scrooge-like and curmudgeonly (it's also a bit light-hearted of a post) but I've come into work today (22nd November) and my desk and the office is festooned with decorations.

I don't mind Christmas, in December, but I want to be able to navigate my desk without knocking over a reindeer or pulling tinsel down by accident. Someone also thought it more important that the Christmas lights have access to plug sockets rather than work laptops as they are all taken up.

I'm clearly venting here as I'll just smile, nod and go along with it - I'm new to the team in the last six months so I guess I have to just go with the office standard...

Vent over, please insert caffeine.

Had the same yesterday. Bloody ridiculous. It's a bank of desks used by four teams on a rota but one team who is in once a week has decorated the shared desks. Tinsel and lights everywhere, plus three Christmas trees.

Annoys me as well but the woman in our team who does it every year at least "waits" until 1st Dec.

They won't know if you don't tell them?

Just say something like oh I keep knocking over this reindeer so I'll just pop him here.

And unplug the light for your lap top

I love Christmas but November is WAY too early for decorations IMO. And what idiot uses the electric sockets required for work to put up lights? Apart from anything else it might be breaching Health and Safety. Aren't there something called PAT(?) tests that electrical equipment have to comply with?

If there are no sockets for your laptop just work until the battery runs out then go home.

Switch them off pile them on an empty table mention to whoever was 'checking' the decorations ready for December thats where they are and btw you'll need your plug socket, in December.

You need this:

Are all the Christmas lights PAC tested? If they cause a fire/electrocution and are not then the insurance won't pay out.

I would smile and nod too - as I declutter my desk of Xmas tat and plug my laptop in. Bloody ridiculous!

Thanks. Glad I'm not the only one who feels like this :)

The way the office is set up it would be a very noticeable thing if I moved things. I've moved the light up twinkling reindeer on my desk "in case I knock it off" like PP suggested.

One of the many benefits of hybrid working post covid is that we now share our office space with hundreds of other people across multiple teams and as it is no longer "our" space there can be no decorating. Yay!