I disagree. If we were to not clean things up that we don't understand then most people would be very limited in what they can clean. This is not viable and I suspect that very few people are comfortable operating in as high a level of disorganization as you. I would say that the level of messiness in sudo room is the primary turn-off for myself when it comes to working there, even before "people will distract me from my work" which is mostly solvable with headphones.

It is super frustrating when people move/trash useful stuff. This has definitely happened to me. The solution is to not leave anything unlabeled in the space that you care about. Either label the thing or put it in a container and label the container. Short pieces of guitar string is especially in need of labeling since it resembles trash to most people. The label should be clear enough that people will know what to do. E.g: Guitar string could be labeled as "3D printer head cleaner". Back in old sudo room I had labeled the guitar string by putting a piece of blue painter's tape around it and writing on it.

Tools that are obvious to everyone as being useful and not up for hacking, like screwdrivers, should be labeled with just "sudo room". Bigger things should use labitrack.

It would also really help if we establish a proper "aging shelf" where stuff is put on one shelf and then moved down every day or two until it reaches the bottom and is then thrown out. I think ideally we'd have at least one week of aging before something unlabeled is thrown out. I will try to set this up next time I am at sudo. This would also serve well as a lost and found, where the last shelf can be thought of as a free pile.

 

We want a clean table AND a functional 3D printer.

 

Nice! Great to have the Type A back in action :D

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marc/juul