Workspace boundaries should be respected.

In this story, an employee had a corner desk in the office.

His coworkers treated his workspace like a hallway and a drink stand, leaving their beverages on his desk.

So he found a creative way to reclaim his space.

Let’s take a closer look!

Stopped co-workers from leaving their trash on my desk

Many years ago, I had a corner desk near the door.

Co-workers would regularly put their drinks on my desk on their way to the restroom.

They would pick them up on the way back.

This happened often.

This man started throwing the drinks away.

After asking them not to do that, I put an extra wastebasket at the end of the desk.

I started tossing their drinks in it.

They were often genuinely surprised to find no drink when they came back through.

I would just apologize. I told them that I didn’t know who left their trash on my desk.

I said that I needed my desk space to work.

He would also bump his coworkers who are cutting through his work area.

They also bumped into my chair while cutting through my work area.

These things would happen multiple times a day.

It was always the same handful of people.

It was so bad that if I rolled my chair back six inches, I would accidentally run into them.

So that is exactly what I started doing.

He would roll his chair back to get some files.

When I had to get a file from the side drawer, I would roll my chair back.

I would turn sideways to get to the files.

I decided that I needed a file pretty much every time someone was cutting through my workspace.

It took a few times. The worst offenders soon stopped after a few interactions between their ankles and my chair legs.

He acted like it was an accident and that it wasn’t intentional.

I would always profusely apologize. I would ask if they were OK.

I would offer to help them get back to their desk. I would offer to write an accident report.

Nobody was ever seriously injured.

I am sure there were some bruises. I’m not proud.

I would do it all again if I were at that desk in that office.

Lol. Let’s see how others reacted to this story.

This one makes sense.

You did what you had to do, says this one.

Yes, indeed.

This one gives their honest opinion.

Finally, here’s another harsh reality.

Respecting personal space is important if you don’t want to get hit by the office chair.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.