Via Kate, a story from a legal blog about a decisions in the case of a messy professor:
“Clean your room or get out!” Words from a frustrated parent to a messy teenager? Not quite. The mess-maker in this case was a chemistry professor at the University of Texas, who ignored repeated warnings to clean up his dangerously cluttered lab space. When University officials decided to clean it themselves, the professor caused such a disturbance that campus police had to lead him away in handcuffs. The professor was eventually fired, which prompted a lawsuit claiming that the University retaliated against him and denied him equal protection.
Now, I will admit that I once got an email from my postdoc advisor threatening to fire me if I didn’t clean the lab, but that was a late-night fit of pique, and we smoothed it over in the morning. Still, even I can’t really imagine what kind of mess this must’ve involved.
Anyway, here’s the poll:
On a scale of one to ten, one being “we put the socket wrenches back in the tool chest for the two minutes between removing the old flange and installing the new one” and ten being, well, “led off in handcuffs for intefering with the campus officials cleaning your lab,” how messy is your work space?
It depends on what I’m working on at any given time, but I’ll give an average value of about 5. It’s about a 2 on the best days, and a 7 on the worst, but 4-5 is fairly typical. Tools that I use often are generally lying out on the optical tables somewhere along with optics that have been removed or are waiting to be installed, and I’m pretty bad about picking up and throwing away discarded Post-Its, lens tissue, and odd bits of wire.
I’m nowhere near being arrested or fired, though.
My office is worse than my lab, most of the time. But I figure as long as it’s cleaner than that of the campus safety officer, I’m safe, and that’s not a high bar to clear, as it turns out.