I've learned the hard way never to ask why people I've worked with have this or that item on their desks.

And I've had some of the best laughs of my life reading the memos from bosses who try to say what can and can't be on a work desk. Anyone who wants to do a study of doublespeak or politically correct speak needs go no farther than these memos.

The most widespread desk decoration are kids' pictures. It's always kids' pictures. Nobody ever puts pictures of their parents on their desks. I don't know why this would be so, except maybe we like to look to the future and our dreams for it and not at old dreams we might not have fulfilled.

Don't ask about the children. You will hear a life history of the child -- when he took his first step and a long explanation of why, when she stopped sucking her thumb, all the angst involved in whether or not to cut his/her hair short or let it grow, how the kindergarten teacher simply swoons over every finger painting attempt, and the day and hour when each of the children finally made the connection between peeing and the bathroom.

You won't get any work done that day.

Whatever goes on a co-worker's desk will have a long story tied to it; you can count on that. Also, whatever goes on a co-workers desk stays there; none of it ever gets thrown away, even if it's no more than a Chuck E. Cheese cup that appeared in 1988. (You're afraid to ask what's behind that appearance.) It's likely to be the saga of a moment in time that's crammed into a 2-hour explanation. Don't ask unless you have nothing to do.

There are some desk ornaments that you don't really have to ask about, like the Sisyphus perpetually pushing that boulder up the side of a mountain that's on an editorial writer's desk. Or, it's not necessary to ask a banker about the highly polished coins in a clear plastic cube that's a paperweight with no paper or dollar bills under it.

I have known workers who, at their own expense, have painted country scenes on their windowless wall, then painted a window over the scene, then bought drapes that they close every night and open every morning.

Others have covered every level space in their cubical with what's come to be called “collectibles.”

You can find yourself looking forward to an earthquake just to see the 387 snow globes go off at the same time. There are baskets of every weave known to man and some that should have been thrown away. And there are bells (Teachers are bad for this one.) that make you hope there's never an earthquake. Teachers also are big on wooden or plastic apples.

There are stuffed critters of nearly every species, and these have really long stories tied to them that you could run through a truth sifter and have nothing left on the sifter screen. A word to the wise: Never ask about anything you see on a co-workers desk or wall related to golf. These stories take most of a day! A ratty old baseball? Walk on, fast.

It's scary to think too much about all this, because when you do, you begin to see that home is fast becoming a thing of the past. For many people who work too many hours for too little money and live in a house that is a station instead of a home, it is no surprise they are turning to the job surroundings to give them that feeling of home.

Marriage counselors tell us the cause of most divorces is money, usually the lack of it. But the cause goes deeper than that; it's because there isn't enough money to buy anything that might be turned into a home. And when the house becomes a station, that's just someplace people come to for a while, then leave before too long.

It is a grinding cycle, helped not one whit by politicians, preachers, talk shows and bloggers giving us some drippy and foggy picture of early 20th century family values. I'll bet all their homes are stations.

So here we are, bringing what trappings we can find that remind us of what home maybe ought to look like. Much of it is “I” oriented.

And most of us have computers, where we can pull up about any image that gives us a feeling of home. It's usually not real, but it generates warmth.

Sometimes.

Pity the poor boss who has to decide what's permissible at the work station or on the work computer.

Some things are fairly easy to ban (usually doesn't work, but the memo makes you feel better). I don't know how X-rated sites ever got to be called “adult material.” It is designed almost exclusively for people who never got past age 15. And there are the people who never were allowed to go through the age 15 sexual revolution, so they missed discovering what's trash and what isn't. (If you haven't seen it, it's mostly humor.)

No, I'm not going to bring my deer hoof and rawhide wind chimes to work!