Desk souvenirs

[Dleg]

I've noticed that most people have at least one unusual item on their desks. Something interesting they found in the field, a souvenir from a vacation that meant something, etc.

Here's what's on mine:

- Three World War 2 Coke bottles, which I pulled from the dredge spoils when I was performing construction management for the Saipan Harbor project in the 90s. All have "44" in the date year

- Two US Navy coffee mugs, with no handles - from same source, in excellent shape (made by Corning - very strong). I've never drunk coffee from them , though. I use them to hold my pencils and pens. (a red NCEES pencil is in one as we speak)

- A US Navy saucer, from same source.

- Half a refractory brick with Japanese characters imprinted on it. Found it on a beach here. I assume it came from either a locomotive or a ship. Not sure if anything else on the island was powered by coal.

- A piece of slag from a stream bed here, where a US military dump burned, and all the mixed, molten debris flowed across the stream and formed a dam. It's black, slightly metallic, and very dense. It's probably killing me slowly with its toxins, but it looks cool and gives me something to chat about when the EPA folks visit.

- A small, tattered U.S. flag that I flew from my truck's antenna for several months after 9-11. I put it on my wall to remind me of that purity of purpose that seemed to pervade everything in those first few months.

(my desk is incredibly messy these days, by the way, so a lot of this stuff doesn't really stand out like it used to. Back when I was neat)

What's on your desk?

 

[FLBuff PE]

I don't have any souvenirs on my desk right now. Next interesting project I'm on, I'll grab something.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

I have a small University of Louisville logo that was made in a rapid prototyping machine.

 

[MGX]

Whenever old remodels come due its neat to find cool stuff from the past.

Here's a short list

1. An 1897 upright sprinkler head
2. Institutional sprinkler head broken by federal prisoner (guy surely stared at it for 1,000's of hours)
3. 1960's fire nozzles (solid brass!)

There are various other things too but those with a story are always the coolest.

 

[frazil]

not really souvenirs from field work, but on my desk I have...

a blown glass ball paper weight

a purple ninja rubber duckie

a glass ice cube

a magic eye book from the 1990s

 

[FusionWhite]

I have my last name carved out of a solid piece of granite. My dad made it for me as a Christmas present once.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

not really souvenirs from field work, but on my desk I have...
a purple ninja rubber fist

Yikes!

 

[snickerd3]

i have a tiger eye pendant hanging at the entry to my cube to protect me from the evil eye. My boss got us each one from one of his trips a few yrs back.

 

[frazil]

not really souvenirs from field work, but on my desk I have...
a purple ninja rubber fist

Yikes!

don't you have a dog that needs his teeth brushed?

 

[cableguy]

I have a stock certificate from my first post-college employer hanging on the wall in a frame in my office. They've merged (twice) and changed names since, so they no longer exist. I thought it was kinda cool looking and unusual. When I left the company, I'd been participating in the employee stock purchase plan, and when I sold out my shares, somehow I ended up with 1 extra share. So they issued me a certificate for that 1 share. I could have sold it back for like 20 bucks, but I kept it and framed it. Pre-merger, it was a really good place to work.

 

[Master slacker]

On my desk, aside from the mandatory pictures and manuals:

Un-refurbishable row 3 turbine blade from an ABB 11D5 gas turbine

Whats left of a row 1 turbine blade from an ABB 11D5 after foreign object damage --- basically confetti

Micarta wedge from a 1963 GE steam turbine's generator

Failed segments of tube from heat recovery unit (boiler)

Heat exchanger tube resleeving sample

MERM

 

[EM_PS]

one of the crew chiefs (nicknamed Wheat) at a previous company kept a stout tree branch in her office - she had run over it (company vehicle) and it jacked up the tranny pretty bad. We labeled it 'Wheat's Oak Tree'...from Skynryd's That Smell: "whiskey bottles and brand new cars, oak tree you're in my way..." - i got an old 'county surveyor' monument top thats being used as a door stop in my basement presently; it may see desk duty someday.

 

[Flyer_PE]

Not much in the way of souvenirs on the desk these days. When I worked for the utility, I had a $2.00 electronic part that took an 1100 MW generator off line for the better part of a week. It was my little keepsake for the 80-hour week it caused for me.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

Other than plans, files, reports, etc. the only personal item on my desk or walls is a box of tissues. I put all my licenses, certificates, novelties, and that stuff in my home office.

 

[Dleg]

Oh, I forgot two other things on my desk (they were somewhat hidden in the debris):

- a carved wooden business card holder in the shape of a Palauan Men's hut. This was a gift last year from the Republic of Palau environmental agency, in exchange for a project I helped them on.

- a pair of those jingly Chinese ball things that you roll around in your hand for exercize/ stress relief. I used to be totally addicted to those things, until we had a cockroach infestation in the office and I found an egg case in the velvet-lined box. I don't like to touch them anymore, so they're just decoration now.

 

[RIP - VTEnviro]

^So you had something nasty growing on your balls, and then just ignored the matter until they became useless.

 

[Dleg]

Basically, yes. :dunno:

 

[Supe]

You guys get all the cool stuff.

All I have are a handful of welding bend test/etched cross section samples, a laminated Dilbert strip "I'm an engineer, not a quality tester", and a laminated fortune cookie that says "You are the master of every situation" that I like to pull out as the trump card whenever my admin argues with me.

 

[OSUguy98]

The only things I have on my desk are pictures of the wife and kid and a few plants from my grandpa and my dad's funeral... Of course, there's an ever-growing pyramid of coke bottle caps, saving them for one of the guys in the office who actually does enter the code....

One of our bridge inspectors has a brick from every city in our district that made bricks.. they have the city name on one side... and he also collects those glass insulators from the old railroad telegraph/telephone lines...

I think he still has a 1'x 2'x 1/2" sheet of steel that he took off a bridge a few years back... it was hanging by about a 1/2" weld on one corner, the rest of the weld had cracked or rusted.... it was hanging over the fast lane on US 50 in Clarksburg.... Could've ruined someone's day....

 

[chaosiscash]

I'm a contractor, so the only personal stuff on my desk is a picture of the wife and a few books. (I have to be able to pack up and leave in one paper box, the "drag box"). However, I do have some old radiation/contamination signs (I especially like the "dangerous when wet" sticker) stuck on the walls and a few burnt up breakers, parts of electrical enclosures with blast holes, etc. laying around.