This is not to knock anyone who does so, just a legitimate post to try and understand the psychology of it. I am for the most part an unemotional and uncaring bastard, but do a have a couple of people whose photos I could display if required, but it just never dawned on me to do so.
If anyone who does would care to post why, please do. Is it a form of “bragging” (look at my hot wife), an icebreaker (people will naturally comment on pictures at your desk), general non-bragging pride, a source of “inspiration” (I can’t make it through the day unless I see my wifes smiling face), or something else?
Also in my mind, another reason I wouldn’t do it is that it could be construed as bragging- say I have a hot wife (I don’t) and three adorable kids- I would be sensitive to the schmo beside me who might want these things and not have them, and now he has a constant reminder of the emptiness in his life or some such- kind of like telling the person beside you on welfare all about your fabulous trip to Fiji.
The rationale seems pretty simple to me: Most people feel happier when they’re around a reminder of someone they love, which makes the workday drudgery just a bit more bearable. For some it might be a bit of “look at how proud I am of my family” (earlier today I went into someone’s office where she had a “I’m a proud parent of a kid on the honor roll” bumper sticker posted on the wall behind her desk, next to a bulletin board filled with pics of her kid), but I think it’s harmless. I would be far more disturbed by someone who didn’t feel proud of their kids and want to brag about them to others.
I guess it’s nice that you are senstive to the fact that some lonely, unhappily single folks might be upset by someone showing off their family, but I don’t think most of us singles would even think anything of it. In this culture, I can think of a lot of ways that single people are made to feel bad about their status that rank far above happening to catch a glimpse of someone else’s family (like the whole Valentine’s Day stuff, just for starters )
Because the tenth time your boss reminds you to put a cover sheet on your TPS reports and you that urge, no matter what the consequences, to see what his expression will be when you jab those scissors into his arm, your smiling family is the only thing that will make you stop for a moment and think about it.
Both of the above rationales are correct. I have no picture of my beloved SO, not to sound corny, but he’s in my heart. I do have a picture of my little niece, because she is the cutest little munchkin in the world, and she makes people go AWWWWWWWW!
As far as the “non-bragging” thing goes… does this mean that you shouldn’t take your “hot wife” out after you’re married? How do you handle compliments: “You’re wife is beautiful”, stuff like that?
I just find it odd that having a picture of your hot wife could be construed as bragging, but having a hot wife… isn’t?
Years ago a woman I was dating gave me a picture of herself specifically to put in my cubicle. A coworker looked at it and said she was cute, who was she, my daughter? I said it was my girlfriend. Coworker was speechless. He almost looked like he wanted to hit me. Or call the cops. “Dude, you’re having sex with her? She’s, like, two years old!” It took some explaining to convince him that it was not, in fact, a recent photo.
I agree my views are often odd and without rationale or with conflicting rationale- which is why I often solicit opinions- to see how normal people think
But I would say here, my feeling is that having a hot wife in real life is one thing, and yes, technically you may be showing her off every time you leave the house, but going out in public is inevitable and a part of life. Placing a picture on your desk is not a necessity, and may in fact upset someone else at work, especially a lonely virginal guy, or guy who wife died.
I know for one if my child died or something, I would not want to see pictures of happy, alive children on the desks at work- it would be bad enough to go out in public or watch TV and see all the kids.
I think around friends and family its one thing, but for the most part you (I) don’t hang around a lot of people at work after work. And yes there are things I may “brag” about to friends and family that I would not do around co-workers.
The example in my OP- there is a (very) poor girl by me at work- I wouldn’t regale her with stories of my trip to Paris, or how my new Lexus drives, which I would share with people who can have/do the same. Someone up here yesterday was actually whining to this girl (who is on welfare) about the problems she is having with her daughter’s pet horse! Intentional or not, I could not believe how obnoxious this was. And the picture on the desk is sort of similar to that to me.
To paraphrase Stanley from The Office, I wake up every morning in a bed that’s too small, drive my kid to a school that’s too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little, but these pictures of my family remind me of why I’m doing it and make it worth it. That, and pretzel day.
Well, the one about the scissors and TPS report is one good reason I have a photo of my daughter in view at work when I have a cubical of my own.
My husband carries a photo of me in his wallet. I let him take it for our tenth wedding anniversary. In it, I am not wearing anything, but there is noting much showing but acres of cleavage. He used to work with a bunch of young loudmouths who thought his being considerate of me was proof he was not a man. He showed that to them, and about half thought that maybe he had reason to treat me well. I told him how to deal with the other half. I told him to tell them: “She swallows.” and that shut them up too.
Different people have different reasons, but I bet the scissors are a common reason.
I have neither spouse nor offspring, and so have never had to festoon my office with pictures to prove my devotion.
However, I now have nephews. And last year Number One Nephew figured out that (1) daddy has his picture in daddy’s office, (2) grandpa has his picture in grandpa’s home office, so therefore (3) uncle Lightray must have his picture in uncle Lightray’s office!
Since I don’t want to lie to my nephew, I now have a picture of him in my office.
I don’t have a picture of my (yeah, she’s hot- so what?) wife in my office, but only because the one I used to have got lost in the office move and I haven’t gotten around to getting a new one. I do have pics of my kids, though. And sure, it’s partly to brag (yeah, my kids are adorable- so what?), but also to remind me to get the hell home at the end of the day and be greeted by them at the door with hugs and kisses.
I keep pics of my family and pets on my desk so that when the soul-sucking, humanity-destroying, cubicle-grey, sickly-fluorescent, unceasing boredom of my workplace threatens to drown me in despair, I can look at the faces of the ones I love and prevent myself from going to the bathroom to slit my wrists.
I keep pictures of my family on my desk for the same reason that I keep a plant and my Jack-In-The-Box antenna ball and my Dead Like Me bobble head on my desk. To personalize my workplace. To mark my territory. To remind everybody that the person who inhabits this cube is not a faceless cog in the corporate machine. These items are there for me and would be there regardless of who, if anyone, besides sees them.
Well, I admit that the beige walls, gray carpet, and black IKEA bookshelves in my office should be cheery enough for me, but I kind of like my family, so having a couple of pix is nice. I also have a couple of fine art prints on the wall which feature unheard of things like “red.”
My picture of my wife is one of the worst ones ever taken of her, but it’s against the backdrop of the a glacial valley in the Beartooth, so it stays; that way I can keep in mind that there are better looking places than the Texas Gulf Coast.
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