11/19/15 Familiarity Breeds Complacency?

    The title just came to me as I walked into our lab and noticed the mess some people leave behind.  I will go in and clean my area once I am done.  Some coworkers have taken ownership of areas in the lab and just leave everything as is when quitting time rolls around.  I understand the feeling that "it is my space".  Most of us have been here at least 20 years.
    It is the same as at the house, there I am comfortable enough to leave my mess anywhere.  My nose gets runny when I sleep, therefore there is going to be a pile of tissue/toilet paper with snot on my side of the bed.  Wife gets on me that it is gross, but I don't think about cleaning it up every day.  If I was entertaining in the bedroom, maybe I would care.
    These little piles build up everywhere.  Wife gets school supplies for her homeless kids, after a while she has piles all over the house.  Just today, she was cleaning around the pool table, getting rid of bins that have been there over a year.  Just moving those things, the room looked a lot different and bigger.
    It is not that we are slobs, we just collect so much crap all the time.  We have to constantly keep moving furniture around, same in the closets.  I went to get my jacket, it is finally cool enough, and the closet under the stairs is full, above my head with so many stupid stupid bags which we will forget to take when we go to grocery store.
    When you first move into a place, one swears "this time it will be different, this time, I will keep my area clean."  Fast forward a couple months, the tune becomes "this is my house, I do what I want!"  I went outside and cut the palm leaves that are dead on our two palm trees, it has been over a month, not only have I not gone back to cut the grass, those palm leaves I cut, are still in the yard, killing whatever grass they landed on.
    Eventually we get off our asses and fix things up, but it takes a lot to get the king of his own castle to really put in the effort required to make his own place shine.  I think that is why people hire maids, just knowing they are coming is an incentive to keep the house clean.  Our little summer maid, went off and got pregnant, and ran away.  She claimed cleaners and stuff made her nauseous.  Oh well, it was nice while she lasted, but we need another reason to really clean.