We all love our workstations.  Even if our employer bought them and put a label on them.  We would hate to have someone move or change it.  Here is one such story.

Upon visiting a customer site to perform a software upgrade, the three of us engineers couldn’t help but notice the Post-it notes all over the edge of the console.  There was so many notes that there was little room for one more.

The main operator’s name was Mike just like mine.  He was a really big guy like a former football player who had retired from the game and put on a few pounds.

When Mike went to lunch, one of our engineers decided to put one more Post-it note on his workstation. He wrote “Call your mother” on one and stuck it near the center top rim amongst the many others.  We all wondered if Mike would notice the new note with so many others covering the edge.

When Mike came back from lunch, a mere 5 minutes went by when Mike asked in a deep angry voice, “Who’s been messin’ with my workstation?”

The three of us engineers cracked up and laughed hysterically.  When we finally calmed down, the engineer that put the last Post-it-note on the workstation confessed.

Mike too had calmed down and understood it was a simple joke.

But this simple joke could have gone seriously wrong.  What if Mike’s mother had passed away?  Then the joke would have been a tragic reminder of a missed loved one.

So the moral of this story is always watch what you say. Anything you say may come back to haunt you.