Q: I work in an open office space, which means that there’s a big room where five of us have desks, and one of us—not me—is a hoarder.
There are piles of garbage, bits of half-eaten food, assorted shoes and toiletries, books, CDs, DVDs, magazines, and vinyl records all over this person’s area. We get periodic infestations of ants, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we had bigger vermin, though none of us have seen any yet.
Management is aware of the problem and is not going to take action. I should mention that the hoarding has started getting worse and is slowly starting to encroach on other areas of the office. How can the rest of us survive?