Quiet Offices

[disallusioned]

This question seems appropriate this week.  I'm the only one left in my office till after the New Year.  After today's fit of filing and organizing I'm expecting the office work to be done.  What do I do for the rest of the week?  What do you do when your office is dead and you've caught up on all "when I get time" jobs?  Has this ever happened to you?  If so, what did you do?  Any and all suggestions appreciated.

[jahdra]

I'm assuming you've worked your way through your list of rainy day activities, so I'm not going to bore you with mine!

I do online research. On anything that crosses my mind. It's amazing what you can find out, whether your question is trivial or serious. One of my co-workers found her entire family's immigration records on Ellis Island. Another has done an enormous amount of research on lomi lomi (I'm still not entirely certain what THAT is, but she seems to enjoy it).

I write short stories and I'm even working (slowly) on a novel when there's nothing else to do.

Since it's the end of the year, I'm probably going to work on my personal and work-related goals for the coming year, or, if I'm feeling really ambitious, set up my five year plan.

Frankly, I think I'm going to go bonkers myself this week. We just moved, so we're already purged and organized (they made us do that before the move) and I changed positions right at the move, so I have no "I'll get to it later" tasks to do, either. I'll be checking back to see if anyone has any more ideas!

[dettu]

I'm cleaning up a couple of co-workers'/ managers' cubes.  After attending a seminar in December, I realized that one way I'm not providing my best level of service is that I'm not taking the initiative in getting these people organized!  So I'm ordering extra desk trays, sorters, etc. and I'm just marching in there while they're out and grouping things together into the sorters.  I can't do any more than that, but it's making a whopping big difference.  It will be easier for me to do my job if these folks can find their own work without a major big search--less duplication of effort.

[ocblnd]

I don't go back into the office until tomorrow...still have today for extended family Christmas celebration.
Once I get back to the office there are a few end of the year goodies to finish up and routine weekly reports.
THEN....I plan to go thru every pile on my desk and boss desk, weed out, file if needed and generally organize.
Since I do the company newsletter I will begin to mock up the January issue with standard stuff so I can plug in the department news as I receive it and get it rolling early in January.
I will also plug into the electronic calendar all the routine things done each week for 2002...both on mine, on the boss calendar and on the admin calendar.
And since we will have a new VP coming in sometime in January...and I will be providing support for that person (might even be female ! ! ) I want to get a head start on plotting out supplies needed, notebooks to be brought up to date, etc. so it will be ready when VP arrives.

[countrigal]

My work seems to be self-generating so I never have "nothing to do", even when it's quiet.  When it is quiet I have my database to clean up and add new features to that my personnel are waiting for or I'll just start some of my rainy day activities when new claims against our facility come in and I start all that paperwork.  Like I said, mine is a self-generating workload, it multiplies all by itself.  Since I've moved out of traditional secretarial work my workload seems to reproduce like rabbits.

What I used to do is another poster has said... I organize bossie's office, or anyone else I support, so that we all can find important information quickly.  My folks have come to appreciate my 5-10 minutes in their offices while they're away and thank me for the effort.

CountriGal
Deskdemon Editorial Board Member

[disallusioned]

KSmile, what you suggested is what I normally do anytime it gets slow here.  So that is all done.  
I ended up going into my supervisor's office and getting rid of some of her stuff, garbage stuff that has just stacked up on a table waiting for her to find time to file it in the round filing cabinet.  I also did some search and learning on the web.  And I did some studying of program books such as Excel and brushed up on some of that information.  Overall I'll be glad when Monday gets here and things return to normalcy.  I appreciate your suggestions though.