Thursday, January 14, 2010

Bureaucratic Chic

The inspiration for my [long delayed] post today is this teal blue filing cabinet. It sits behind me every day at my office job. When I first started here 6 years ago, my government office was filled with ancient, bureaucratic government-issue furniture. Not much has changed. I work in what is supposed to be a fairly high profile office, but somehow we have the worst space and furnishings. Sometimes the people in our property management division will stop by and be horrified by what we're stuck with. Trying to be helpful, they'll offer to take away some of our rubbish and replace it with better-looking furniture. Sometimes I'll let them. But I've never been able to part with this teal file cabinet. To me, it's a screaming blue reminder that a) we're no better than any of the theoretically low profile offices, and b) sometimes something is so bad it's cool. I've collected some other retro office furnishings to share today.
A row of mismatched filing cabinets from flickr.
A variety of colored filing drawers from flickr.
Perfect patina in situ, from flickr.
A filing cabinet, right at home, from flickr. Vintage vignette from flickr. Silver filing cabinet from flickr.
Green and white filing... on wheels... from flickr.
Teal metal storage pockets from flickr.
Vintage Swingline turquoise stapler from TheFancyLamb. (I also have one of the oldest staplers known to man at my office.)
A mini Swingline stapler from nostalgictreasures.
Vintage 1950s turquoise typewriter from thefancytail.
Green metal file box (above) and teal check file box (below), both from retroology.
Vintage school chair from postroadvintage.
Retro office file organizers from backhomeagain.
Metal desk files from backgarage.
I find it ironic that if I let our property management folks take away my teal filing cabinet, it would probably wind up in a surplus sale, and it might go for $5. If I bought it, I could probably sell it for a few hundred dollars to a customer who would appreciate its history, sturdiness, and retro bureaucratic chic.

5 comments:

oh, albatross said...

or you could sell it to me 'cause i think it's awesome.

alyn said...

something so nice to begin the first of the year with enough drawers. nice posting.

backhomeagain said...

Some amazing finds and a great blog post. My favorite is the school chair. I do appreciate being included. Thanks so much!

loneweever said...

Today I saw a guy drive by pulling a boat on a trailer. In the boat was another boat.

Just a thought. You could put your drawers in your drawers.

Unknown said...

I love that blue/green midcentury vintage color! I wouldn't be able to part with it either if that was in my office.