One of the slightly more ridiculous policies at work is the "clean desk" policy. From the three lines of the email I have read it states that when you leave for the day, your computer must be locked or off, your drawers locked and your desk clean and devoid of paper. I usually manage one of the three. However there is a (growing) pile of paper to my left. It's a combination of old newspapers, discard presentations, some notes from my Cantonese lessons, a couple of calendars, some business cards and a magazine. The usual clutter of genius. Most of the desks around me have the same.

So there has been much merriment this afternoon looking at the photos taken by the security people of desks they have deemed to "fail" the policy after a random sweep. Desks such as mine passed no problem. Some such as Giles have failed miserably - in his case for having a fax lying across his keyboard.

The company is paying good money for people to walk around after hours and take photos of desks with paper on them. Where's my broker...