Just how big is your desk, anyway? I have room for a framed photo and that’s it. Then again, I have no hutch and am not allowed to put anything on the walls, so maybe it’s just my office.
Nope. The penguin was actually an extra from our television commercial last year, and because I like penguins, I inherited it. YAY!
I recommend that you write the 67th book of the Bible. 'Cuz this is WORD!!
There is nothing–NOTHING–worse than a self-hating, uppity woman. My field puts me in contact with a bunch of these bitches. They are the type who hold their male coworkers as models to esteem after, even though their male coworkers are just as flawed as the female coworkers (usually in the EXACT same way). I’m not very feminine but I’m not “anti-” feminine either. Girly does not equate to bad, and I’ve never been ashamed of being a woman.
There is no one standard for workplace culture. What’s professional in one workplace is totally inappropriate in another. It’s in the newbie’s best interest to find out what the culture is before deciding–within reason–what’s professional and what’s not. If everyone has toys on their desks, then obviously its allowed. Someone wise and powerful has decided it doesn’t go against professional decorum. It’s up the newbie to either join in or live and let be. Not to judge sanctimonously.
My boss doesn’t have toys (at least visible ones), but he does have a bunch of pictures, mostly of his son. He also has a giant drawing that his son did taped to his door. Some fool might call his display “unprofessional”, but I think it’s wonderful. Just because we’re at work doesn’t mean we cease being human.
As mentioned repeatedly, sometimes toys just show up. You attend a conference and someone gives you a rubber ball with your company’s name on it. You have an office party and someone gives you a gag gift. It’s perfectly alright to keep something non-work related on your desk. I’m betting when you settle into your job and get more comfortable, you’ll find “toy-like” stuff accumulating on your desk.
What, no one else has a Magic 8 Ball on their desks? How do you make your decisions? 
As for the stuffed animals, all I have is a Beanie Baby penguin perched nonchalantely atop my monitor. (Far from the ventilation slots, yes, and he doesn’t cover any part of the screen.) It’s my mini-rebellion against Windows.
Oh, also taped to my monitor is a frame from a Dilbert strip that has Dogbert shaking a wand and saying “Out Out!! You Demons of Stupity!!”
Seems to work pretty well. 
**Jodi ** you rock!
Nongoog - Jodi is completely right. Spend your time and resources worrying about yourself and not what others are doing. Learn as much as you can and you will find out in the long run, it really doesn’t matter how people arrange their workspaces.
I find this very sad.
Jodi pretty much said it the intelligent way.
Normally I try not to be disagreeable, but your attitude is ridiculous and irritates the fuck out of me. The fact that you’re harping on what a “professional woman” you are and how all the other girls are OMG so unprofessional really indicates you are insecure with your job… that you would dismiss someone’s capability based on whether they have a stuffed animal on their desk instead of evaluating the quality, professionalism and reliability of their work is really pitiful. Basically you’re judging them for the same reason men judge them–because they’re into “girly stuff.” To you both, “girly” = infantile and unprofessional. As if that weren’t already clear enough, you emphasized it with “I hate my gender.”
I understand sexism is a very real issue women face (as your OP suggests, it’s not limited to men either.) I understand because I’ve experienced it firsthand. But running around screaming “I’m not like those OTHER women, I’m a professional!” does just as much to denigrate working women as any man’s attitude ever could. As long as you maintain this attitude, you are “a credit to your gender” – and that’s NOT a fucking compliment. If you have to constantly remind yourself that you’re a woman in order to feel good about your success, that’s sad. Most women who really know how to get their shit done don’t spend too much time thinking about the fact that they’re women or how they’re so much better than other women. They just do their job.
I admit it… sometimes I get irritated when people assume I’m into shopping and shoes just because I’m a woman, and sometimes I think things associated with women seem mind-numbingly boring and superficial, but I don’t run around denouncing all women who enjoy shopping as idiotic twits. That would show a severe lack of good judgment–you know, making broad assumptions about people based on a single interest or arbitrary characteristic–essentially buying into idiotic stereotypes about women… That is what you’re doing here… you’ve swallowed the vitriol associated with female stereotypes and it’s a reprehensibly immature attitude to take. You believe the truth about the same sexist bullshit you claim to overcome! Overall, I find your judgmental and condescending and superior attitude far more infantile than a damned stuffed animal.
Please do.
IT and computers is one thing, but if I were a client of an investment banking firm or a potential partner, seeing any of this crap (especially a Magic 8-ball) world make me want to walk right out the door.
Financial services and computer programming: two completely different cultures. And frankly I wouldn’t expect anyone to display stuffed animals in the former.
Well then I apologize. It seems I was mistaken.
Sorry for the snark.
Thanks, y’all. :o nongoog, I’m glad you’re taking your new job seriously, as well you should. I would just caution you to not take it so “very, very seriously” that you forget the importance of “works and plays well with others.” There’s a stick-up-her-butt, holier-than-thou, self-important snot in a lot of offices; trust me, you do not want to be that person.
In the interests of full disclosure: There’s a plastic aardvark and a slinky on my desk, and a stuffed college mascot, a bear, on the shelf behind me – yes! Gasp! A bear! I used to have a plastic pony but I sent it to Gadarene.
I wouldn’t think there’d be a great many financial services companies where Important Business Visitors had to walk through the working office to the board room? Certainly not in my experience, though I could be wrong.
Perched atop my monitor are:
- A plastic pig
- Some kind of small crystalline rock
- Gumby
- A tiny E.T.-like alien creature
- A plastic dinosaur somewhat resembling an oversized prehistoric armadillo.
These things are vital for the proper functioning of this office, second only to coffee.
The O.P. sounds like an unhealthily obsessing person who might one day start screeching incoherently and throwing file cabinets out the window.
nongoog, it’s not these other women’s fault that you’re overqualified for you job and that it doesn’t excite you. Its also not even their fault that management is mostly men and support staff is mostly women. So try not to take your frustration out on them, these ladies may do you some favors down the line. Some of them could even become your friends (you might not be the only writer there, you know).
I hope you warm up to you’re new job. I worked an an I-bank for a few months once, it was a very nice group of people – hopefully it will be the same for you.
threemae, my experience with finance is different. In NYC, the job markets for finance and computer programming actually overlap heavily, and almost all the programmers I knew in who worked in Manhattan were at banks. The place I worked at had a beautiful conference area for formal presentations, but in cubeland we had all the usual crap that everyone else has. There was a manager in my area who didn’t throw out his trash from lunch half the time, a teddy bear would have been a huge improvement.
I’m gonna go buy myself a teddy for my desk this weekend, I think i need one.
There is a such thing as taking things too seriously. Lighten the hell up.
Lately I’ve been starting to call everybody ‘ma’am’, male or female. No complaints so far because nobody knows I’m secretly serious and actually consider everybody else an old frail woman.
I have these too!!! Still on the box! 
I think it must be a cultural thing - not too many stuffed animals around here, not that it really matters (we must be so grown up!). OP - whatever you do , don’t go to Japan, it will do your head in. I was given stuffed animals for my 27 through 33rd birthday in Japan.
Women put thousands of them on the their cars’ rear window shelf.
Wow, don’t WE think a lot of ourselves?
:rolleyes: :dubious:
Looking down on your coworkers certainly does NOT “demonstrate your professionalism, intelligence,” or whatever. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Hey, I’ve got the Ebony model!
I find the best all-purpose address to be: “Sir! Ma’am! Whatever!”
Totally perfect Google ad for the OP right now (at work and at home):
Relationship Skills
Great Valentine Gift Last Minute Valentine Gift