If you took the time to read the voluminous obituary of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger in Sunday’s NY Times, you'd have come across this description deep inside the story of his life and work as publisher of The Times:
“By nature, he was fastidiously neat. The habitual clutter on reporters’ desks drove him to distraction.”
As a former reporter, I can vouchsafe a cluttered desk is part of a journalist’s DNA. Our desks could be, should be, condemned by fire marshals as potential fire traps. But as seemingly disheveled as it appears, a reporter’s desk is unique to him or her in its self-ordered filing system. With a deft hand, a reporter could sift through the mess on his desk and surrounding floor space to produce the report or notebook containing the exact quote or citation needed for the story approaching deadline.
One of my favorite Abbott & Costello routines was their take on efficiency experts. Abbott upbraided Costello for the mess on his rolltop desk. Papers were strewn every which way. Calmly, Costello reassured Abbott everything was in order, in its proper place. Anything Abbott would want could be easily retrieved. Go ahead, test my system, Costello challenged him. Sure enough, whichever contract Abbott requested, no matter how deeply it was buried under mounds of paper, Costello pulled it out from the pile with a pair of scissors. Duly impressed, Abbott raced off to tell their boss and invite him to a demonstration of Costello’s efficiency. Costello’s triumph was aborted by a sudden gust of wind when the door to their office was opened by their supervisor, sending all the papers flying across the office. They were fired on the spot.
I carried the reporter’s prototype desk well into my days as an editor and publisher. It would exasperate my superiors who forever were urging me to clean up my surroundings. I'd reply with the time honored line, “A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind.”
During one of my vacations, our company president demanded my office be cleaned up. My boss's assistant dutifully straightened up all my papers. Barbara didn't throw any out, she made neat piles of loose papers, magazines, newspapers, and assorted reports. But when I returned to work I was unable to find anything for more than a week. I threatened to have her fired if she ever touched any of my stuff again. She never did (shortly thereafter I promoted her to an editorial position; she’s been reading and editing copy for the last 15 years).
My desk resembling the aftermath of a typhoon blowing through a stationery store, I had to advise my staff they should never put anything they want me to see on my desk if I wasn’t sitting before them. Always, I told them, put papers on my chair. I always looked at my chair before sitting down.
Much to Gilda’s chagrin, now that I'm retired, my desk in the home office we share remains messy. She has a hard time concentrating at her desk amidst the clutter on mine. Why my desk should bother her is beyond my ken. She's always promoting the virtues of a neat desk. Sometimes, even I find it necessary to clear the decks and throw out really old newspapers with stories I had tagged for blog posts but never got around to writing. Try as I might, I revert to old pack-rat ways. My clutter is habitual. I guess that will always confirm I’m a reporter at heart and in mind.
