I have a big pillow (a souvenier from my undergrad alma mater) that I keep under my desk. I take it out when I need to punch or squeeze something.
I used to have a play-doh sculpture of my cat monstro on my desk.
On top of the lab computer monitor, we have a row of plastic dinosaurs that we routinely play with. FWIW, my workplace is mostly male.
I’m betting workplace stress is negatively correlated with the number of toys one has in his or her workstation.
If you work in video games, you see all kinds of crazy shit at people’s desks. The most common items are anything related to games and anime, but pretty much anything goes except for porn. The coolest thing I have is a large plastic pteranodon that I can hang from the ceiling. I rigged up a paper clip and string arrangement so that I can make it look like it’s making different maneuvers. One guy had a bunch of Godzilla stuff; another had the world’s largest collection of Gundam models. The women had the same general kind of stuff, but instead of mecha they might have Witch Hunter Robin figures or something.
DAMN!! I came to post that I had stuffed microbes on my desk!!
I can’t believe someone beat me too it… or even had seen these before!!!
This is why I love SDMB. It’s like… you get me, right here. 
Hmmm, I’m a male too, and this thread was making me want to go out and get a stuffed animal for my desk, until I read this quote.
Sorry, I’m just not that into sailboating.
You’re wrong 
I am not against action figures or little toys, I guess they seem smaller and more discreet. Also, I tend to be against stuffed toys in general, similar to Kalhoun and it’s hard for me to take adults seriously when they have a bunch of stuffed things around because it seems so infantile.
Also, I guess I’m somewhat less opposed to things like dinosaurs or gorillas than I am to teddy bears and unicorns. Dunno why. The latter seem, again, more babyish than the former.
It is just so striking that the women’s cubicles all have stuffed toys and the men’s don’t and, as a young woman trying to work her way around the whole male-dominated corporate scene, the stuffed toys for the women seem needless and anything but good self-presentation.
I have always found it interesting that the things that are stereotypically female (unicorns, teddy bears) become *by definition * babyish and unprofessional while masculine associated items (dinosaurs and gorillas) are ok.
This is not unique to the OP- it’s the old example of encouraging women to be anything they want (not just a nurse, be a doctor! Play sports!), but you rarely hear the reverse- boys being told they can be anything they want (be a dancer, a secretary, a nurse. Play with dolls!) because traditionally “female” occupations, interests and activities are seen as less than.
I am all for ecouraging girls and women to reach for anything they want, but am frsutrated at the often automatic devaluing of female associated stuff.
Anyhoo- I do love my stuffed microbes!
Oh, I thought the OP was a riot, and a valid point (although hating your gender is a bit of an over-reaction).
And I think it DOES make an impression, absolutely. One architect I worked for agreed, too, which is why I got my ass chewed for constantly accumulating dirty coffee cups on my desk. Ooh - and at another job I got in trouble for bringing in my pencil drawing of a naked man. It was mostly his shoulder and arm, but there was a li-t-tle bit of butt check, too; had to take that one home.
Most of the places where I worked had some kind of code concerning workspaces - personalize it (discretely) if you’d like, with a couple of items from home, and feel free to display as much Company propaganda as you can.
I cleaned offices one winter, we were really broke and needed the $50/wk it brought in. So I “saw” these people, their spaces, when they weren’t present. It was fascinating, how much you learn about people from the way they personalized their environment. One woman had festooned her cubicle with little stuffed animals, I think she must’ve had 50 of them, all colors of the rainbow, plus some other vivid trinkets. It was scary. It really screamed “I want to be 8 years old again”.
Ponders taking some of her stuffed animals to work and doing the absurd squeaky-voiced conversation thing with them
You know, I just remembered that my manager (who’s a guy) set up our giant stuffed Mole Sister in a black lace Merry Widow. As a Valentine’s Day display. She’s carrying a whip.
Thank Og it’s not where anyone but staff can see it.
All these things are marketed primarily to kids. Your perception is skewed.
You have to admit, it would be better than bringing the real thing in, as so many idiots do.
I think the OP is just jealous because all the other ladies in the office got Valentine’s day teddy bears and unicorns from their sweeties, and she got bupkis.
Whoa. I was about to join the fray on nongoog’s side, when I realized I have a stuffed animal on my desk! When the office moved a few years ago, this stuffed bumblebee was left behind by someone. It was displayed prominently at my workstation so that if anyone ever came to claim it, it could be found…and that was five years ago. Sometimes the computer guy picks it up and throws it at me. I retaliate by hiding the little plastic alligator he keeps on his desk.
Somehow I always thought of it more as the office weapon than my own cozy little comfort.
Although I’m not nearly as fired up about it, I tend to feel the same way as the OP. In my experience, the women who have stuffed animals scattered about their cubicles- and I don’t just mean one or two little things, but whole colonies of what are basically baby toys- are the same women who will bring in the elaborate Thomas Kinkade Christmas diorama thingy during the holidays and send email glurge to everyone in the company. It’s tacky. Want to decorate your cubicle? Fine, but just know that the way you do it says a lot about your professionalism, regardless of the quality of your work. If you’re comfortable with that, OK, and I’d never ask you to remove that stuff. But you’re presenting an image that may run counter to your desire for upward mobility, so don’t be surprised if you’re not taken as seriously as you would like.
Once again, the guys get all the cool toys. They get the floating remote-controlled blimps, the Newton’s Cradle, the basketball hoop that sticks to the file cabinet with suction cups. Dames get stuffed teddy bears, unicorns, and ceramic angels. I hate angels.
I also really, really hate the Hummel-like figure of a fishing boy, who sits on top of the monitor with the line hanging down in front of the monitor. (For that matter I hate real Hummels, but this is even worse, because it…dangles.) Aaaaarrgghh!
But, it is not my monitor. As long as everybody leaves my red stapler alone…
I’m not a big fan of the overly girly stuffed animals/Thomas Kinkade/random stupid trinkets displays either, but can appreciate one or two that are tastefully displayed. I never had too many “feminine” stuffed animals as a kid, as somehow I got things like ostrich, monkey, zebra, and other zoo-themed stuffed animals instead of the usual teddy bears and my little ponies. Currently, there aren’t any toys on my desk. Part of this is because I have no real desire to display anything, and part of it is because I’m the receptionist, so it’s not like I could decorate my desk area with rather unfortunate looking homemade sock monkeys/sock monsters. (The first one I ever made was a gift; it had an absurdly large set of male genitals and sewn in pubic hair. Definitely NSFW.)
I don’t know if I’ll ever work in an office environment where I’ll have both the room and the appropriateness level for office tchotchkes, but if I do, they’ll more than likely be kooky or geeky rather than feminine or masculine.
I liked Dung Beetle’s story about the computer guy throwing a stuffed bumblebee and the retaliation of hiding a little plastic alligator.
I am a male teacher and used to keep a purple rabbit on my desk. It joined me in class when I taught 10 years olds, because they were amused by it.
If there are any soft animals adorning the top of the monitor, in such way that their cute widdle paws or fuzzy widdle tails hang down and obscure parts of the display, I may be slightly less than pleased. I will also be irked if your downy friends are blocking the ventilation holes in the monitor.
But if the support call that brought me to your desk is caused by you not being able to find a menu option, because that part of the application window is OBSCURED BY SAID DANGLY FLUFFY OBJECTS, I will launch your plush companions clear across the room, possibly in the direction of an open window.
Humm - well, I have a stuffed pig in my office (not on my desk) that I was given as a gift by someone I work with.
I guess my coworkers could assume that I was a shrinking violet, incapable of functioning without my pink piggy, except for the fact that I’m a total ball-breaker, and actually the person people go to when they need a problem fixed.
So, flakey is as flakey does I guess.
I have a stuffed purple bat toy on my desk, it’s cute and it wears little orange pumpkin slippers. I happen to like it. It’s my Hallowe’en toy and it came to the office in retaliation for all the sparkly Christmas stuff that they put up every year. I don’t do Christmas. I do Hallowe’en. So batty came along and he’s stayed ever since.
He’s a few inches tall, he’s under the monitor so he’s not in anyone’s way and in reality he’s completely harmless. But I can throw him across the room with a certain degree of force, if necessary.