Spray Can It!

I am an office dweller by need and definitely not by choice. There are aspects to the office and work culture that I like (although I can’t think of what they are right now) and a longer list of what I wish would disappear. 

After moving to our new location, co-workers were cleaning and preparing their new desks for tenants and day-to-day usage. Since I had been making the trek to Jersey for a while, my desk has been serving its purpose for a while. I also got dual monitors (WOOOO HOOOO! And really that’s the only cool thing about this move.)! I saw some paper towels make their way across desks and wet wipes picking up dirt and germs. 

A day after everyone moved in, I was sitting quietly and working on some analysis when I heard a hiss. I freaked out thinking that a snake had somehow become one of my cubicle mates (and I don’t mean it symbolically!) But there was no such sign. Shortly after the hiss, I got a whiff of a particularly pungent and antiseptic smell. I looked around but couldn’t place where it was coming from so I let it be.

Perhaps an hour or two later, I heard the hiss again. This time I placed it. The person sitting in the cubicle on the other side of me was spraying Lysol all over her desk. This baffled me for a couple of reasons:

• Why would someone spray their desk in an office when it clearly is inconsiderate to those around them?
• How many germs had invaded the desk in the span of 2 hours?
• Why were wipes not a more appropriate form of germ banishing?
• Was this person sick in the first place? Why did they come to the office – to contaminate the rest of us?

A few hours later (no more than 3 hours, I can guarantee), the Lysol can popped out again and I flipped out after hacking the top portion of my lung onto my desk. I honestly didn’t know how to handle this situation because I’ve never experienced this behavior in an office before. I walked over to one of my colleagues to ask if this person acted in this manner in the Brooklyn office as well or if this was a ‘new cubicle’ behavior. She didn’t recall any smell of Lysol in the other location. 

Speaking to someone else about it calmed me down a bit. The fact that this person was not in the office the next day helped my rage a bunch too. However, the day after, it was take-after-take of a Lysol commercial gone awry.

I contemplated getting Lysol wipes for this woman and leaving them on her desk with a note saying, “Stop Spraying!” I am not sure if it would work. Thought about approaching my boss to talk to her boss but it seems silly. Perhaps I will just get up every time she sprays or if it becomes increasingly difficult to breathe, I will tell her to stop. 

This is the kind of stuff that makes me abhor the office. I feel as though as I get older the office annoyances list grows and I wonder if I am not turning into the regular office curmudgeon. But I do wonder why people insist on this kind of comportment when others are around them?