By Julianna Durie, PLS

If you are borrowing a coworker’s desk for a day/week (assuming it is office policy to use someone’s desk while they are gone; even if you are covering for someone, you may be expected to lug files from that location to your own desk), following these steps will earn the respect of your coworkers.

DO clean your messes: If you spill soda on someone’s desk or drop a doughnut on keyboard, please clean up the mess. No one wants to come back to sticky desk and crumbs in the keyboard.

DON’T over clean: It is one thing to clean up your own mess, it is another issue to vacuum out the desk drawers and scrub the desk with bleach as you loudly complain what a slob someone is. This type of action will only earn you animosity amongst your peers. If you truly are a germ freak, you can quietly clean the desk without announcing it to the whole office.

DO leave the desk exactly as it was. Admittedly everyone’s desk is set uniquely for that person. While you may have a different working style than the owner of the desk, one should “try” to return the desk to it’s former appearance. One of the greatest complaints I hear from co-workers is when someone borrowed his or her desk for a day and moved things on the desk, like putting someone’s client files in a drawer while the usual occupant of the desk kept all the client files in the inbox.

DON’T throw away things on a coworker’s desk. Just because it was meaningless to you does not mean it was meaningless to him or her. For example, I used to leave deadline reminders written on Post-It notes taped to my monitor. While I was on vacation, a new employee needed to use my computer and desk that day. When I returned from vacation, my coworker had thrown away all the Post-It notes.

DO respect your worker’s property. Everyone keeps personal property in their desk. While you may “borrow” their stapler or pens, you should respect the occupant’s property. Ask your coworker, before you use or remove personal property from his or her desk. Candy bars in a coworker’s desk drawer may not be for everyone.

While this is not the inclusive list of how to use someone’s desk, following these steps can save you from numerous disagreements with your co-workers.  Keep in mind that co-workers can form irreversible opinions about someone based on how that person treated their property.

One last thing: On the flipside, if a coworker uses your desk, try to keep in mind that he or she may never have shared an area before. From my example above, I was unhappy, but I asked my coworker why she cleaned my desk. My coworker truly thought she was doing me a favor by cleaning. Rather than yelling, I simply explained that my Post-It notes were my deadline list and asked that next time she just dust around the notes. It had never occurred to my coworker that the notes were important, but we learned to share that desk area for quite some time.”