The Manana Effect

Well, I feel affronted! So this piece of paper has gone missing round these here parts and the last person to handle it said that they had put it in my in tray. Dirty dobber. Two people - two! did they think I was going to cause a scene or something? - came into my office to ask if I'd seen it. No, no I hadn't I said, and there may have been something of the hasty, a touch of the imperiousness, in the manner with which I'd waved them away. Had I checked my in tray lately, they quietly persisted. Well, no, I hadn't. My chair and computer are over here, my in tray is over there. And never the twain shall meet!

Perhaps you should, they suggested. Their eyes were flitting nervously from me to the corner of my desk that is home to the tray (in).

It was when I swung round that I saw what that humble receptacle had become under my tender neglect. There was a mountain of paper shooting out of it at odd angles. The mountain looked like the slightest loud noise might cause an avalanche. It seemed to teeter. Perhaps it even tottered. Whatever it was doing, it made me feel a little ill.

I'll just have a quick flick and see if it's in there. My voice took on an aspect of humility. Turns out it was somewhere down near the bottom, this missing, vital piece of paper. Well I do get a lot of paper dumped on me, you know!

So there were a couple of sarky comments made about my filing system and they left. Huh. Well, I sure showed them. My in tray is now neat as a pin; containing only the three documents in it that were put there today. Everything else I've taken and shoved into my cupboard. I'll deal with it, you know, later.