You Didn't See That

Some things you just have to pretend politely not to see.

As I was leaving work, walking past the open conference table where many of us sit and read the paper and have lunch, I observed one of the long-term employees standing there. What I did not observe was that he seemed to have fallen asleep while bending over to read the paper, so that while his legs were standing on the floor, his entire upper body lay flat, face down on the table, snoring softly. The guy who sits in the cube directly adjacent to the table didn't see either, and neither did the woman who was standing in his doorway chatting with him. You just can't see something like that.

You could not see worse things, of course; and indeed many of my friends at work haven't, especially in the bathroom. You wouldn't believe the things you can not see in the bathroom.

Last week our manager objected to being able to see Robbie's performance plan/evaluation form sitting in plain sight on the corner of his desk. These forms are supposed to be highly confidential, although it's hard to say why. They just spell out the metrics on which our job performance will be evaluated, and are identical for everyone in the department. Still, our manager was troubled to see it sitting openly on Robbie's desk. "You need to put that away," she said.

He laughed it off, but she was dead serious. "You need to put that away."

So after she left his office, he tucked the form loosely into a manila envelope, wrote "EVAL" on the outside and tossed it back, unsealed, into the same spot. It worked like a charm. The next time the boss came into his office, she didn't see it.