11/25/2006
Office Space
What are your work habits like? My "real" work takes up about 50 hours per week, in a cubicle that resides in a space that was not meant for offices. The constant cold air, loud noises, and stream of passers-by makes it a tough place to get much done. However, I always look forward to getting home and doing the sort of work that interests me.
While much of my casual routine gets done on a laptop in another room, I really love having a default space for serious tasks. I'm a bona-fide bibliophile, so close proximity to my books is a must. Because of space constraints, my volumes are organized more by size than through any logical system.
The shelf at left contains all of my literature, fiction, drama, and science-ficiton, as well as a few books on television. A selection of interesting beer bottles sits on top. I don't have enough space for a permanent filing system, so many of my notes, copies, and loose papers are in an elegant egg crate.
Pictured below is the main reason that I like working in this office...my film reference section!
I've been collecting seriously collecting books since about 1999 - I had the great luck of stumbling upon a Friends of the Library sale in Chantilly, VA for their Sunday clearance. I had been too book sales before, but never one like this. There were throngs of people lined up outside, holding boxes that had been distributed my the staff. What the hell was going on? Turns out, the sale was in red alert mode...each box of books was only $5! I think I bought three boxes worth, most of which was literature. What didn't start my paperback classics hedge fund was sold to other used book stores, the result of which was the first few of my film books. Once I became serious about film (roughly 2001), it just took off. My book collecting is not like most - I'm not interested in first edition Hemingways or obscure Latin tomes from the Renaissance. Rather, I'm committed to buying obscure-ish film and art history books from unsuspecting used book stores. As you can see, I'm running out of room!
So, thus surrounded with books, I work. Of course, what I write here as a boon can sometimes be a distracting mess. But so much of what I do on the internet owes itself to cluttered shelves, dusty hardbacks, and an organizational system that creeps around like kudzu.
¶ 12:21 PM 
What are your work habits like? My "real" work takes up about 50 hours per week, in a cubicle that resides in a space that was not meant for offices. The constant cold air, loud noises, and stream of passers-by makes it a tough place to get much done. However, I always look forward to getting home and doing the sort of work that interests me.While much of my casual routine gets done on a laptop in another room, I really love having a default space for serious tasks. I'm a bona-fide bibliophile, so close proximity to my books is a must. Because of space constraints, my volumes are organized more by size than through any logical system.
The shelf at left contains all of my literature, fiction, drama, and science-ficiton, as well as a few books on television. A selection of interesting beer bottles sits on top. I don't have enough space for a permanent filing system, so many of my notes, copies, and loose papers are in an elegant egg crate.Pictured below is the main reason that I like working in this office...my film reference section!
I've been collecting seriously collecting books since about 1999 - I had the great luck of stumbling upon a Friends of the Library sale in Chantilly, VA for their Sunday clearance. I had been too book sales before, but never one like this. There were throngs of people lined up outside, holding boxes that had been distributed my the staff. What the hell was going on? Turns out, the sale was in red alert mode...each box of books was only $5! I think I bought three boxes worth, most of which was literature. What didn't start my paperback classics hedge fund was sold to other used book stores, the result of which was the first few of my film books. Once I became serious about film (roughly 2001), it just took off. My book collecting is not like most - I'm not interested in first edition Hemingways or obscure Latin tomes from the Renaissance. Rather, I'm committed to buying obscure-ish film and art history books from unsuspecting used book stores. As you can see, I'm running out of room!So, thus surrounded with books, I work. Of course, what I write here as a boon can sometimes be a distracting mess. But so much of what I do on the internet owes itself to cluttered shelves, dusty hardbacks, and an organizational system that creeps around like kudzu.
