My boss's girlfriend just came up to me and gave me a heads up that my boss would throw a strop about some bags of clothes being left in reception to be picked up tomorrow, with the classic gem of "you can see how it looks untidy, can't you?"
No, I can't. I walk in and I see an office block that's a hub of activity and facilitates it's tenants. A place for meetings where staff are happy to help with requests, or an office where you don't have to fight with the landlords (because that's ultimately what we are) to get small concessions. A place that cares more about improving the community (which as a social enterprise is our purpose) than minor appearances. I'd probably think it was untidy if it was in the way for days on end, but the bags are gonna be back against the wall, behind the reception desk, for less than 12 hours.
What is it with people valuing things being out of sight? There's a pragmatic element to general neatness, making it easier to clean, getting hazards out of the way, and looking nicer, but I don't understand people throwing a fit because things are temporary less neat.
Anyway I moved the bags all of 5 metres into a meeting room next to reception. See if he whines about them making a mess of a room that isn't being used until the middle of next week.
I don't think this has much to do with neurotypicality. I think that a preoccupation with neatness is an adherence to bourgeois sensibilities that was inherited into society at some point in the past when some pompous dick had a preoccupation with it, and it became some sort of signifier into broader society of wealth and status. Since then, I reckon that parents probably berated/beat their kids over neatness to the point that they become adults with an unhealthy preoccupation with it, and they feel great anxiety when things aren't neat because it makes them feel like they are in danger of receiving abuse, as they had when they were a child.
I had started thinking about the decadence of neatness and how it shows either that you have a lot of time to spend keeping it that neat or the wealth to pay someone else to keep it neat, and then realised I was going to start spiralling again so I thought about a ttrpg oneshot I'm going to run instead.
This