Bongo

At work, I have an extra seat by my desk that hangs out in the corner waiting for guests. It is a small wheeled stool shaped like a bongo drum, and so is affectionately known as a "bongo". There are two other bongos in the office. I keep one by my desk because I have a big open corner without any filing cabinets or tables in it.

The bongos are a little lower to the ground than most desk chairs. They aren't ideal for long chats, or working at one of the built-in desktops. However, they are superb for speedy, dangerous, across office travel (Traveling on a bongo is best done backwards, hence the danger).

When people come to chat with me, they might roll the bongo up to my desktop and sit next to me. It feels very conspiratorial and fun. Other people lean into the corner and sort of slouch down. I think they might be using it as a hiding place, which is also fun. I am glad they are relaxed enough in my cube to make themselves at home and position the bongo for their own personal comfort.

Some people come to chat and eschew the bongo altogether. They either lean on my short wall Charlie-Brown-and-Linus style, or they hover about in the open area behind my chair. These are the people with larger personal space bubbles, the over-caffeinated, or the uninitiated to the goodness that is a bongo.

A catalog of the people that come to chat with me, and their bongo-using habits:
Conspiratorial Bongo Sitters	Corner Hiders	Wall Leaners	Hoverers
shammer, RPAT, Becky, NiBo	jpak, HotRod, NK	EBAR, DHIL, FFAR, JBON	BREA, CGAT, CTAY, NK, Becky (when she mistakenly thinks our conversations will be brief)

When I use a bongo, say, at Becky's desk, I tend to kneel on it, so that I am high enough to use the desk behind her properly. And then when I want to move in closer to her computer, I pull myself around the corner without getting up. Occasionally I fall off the bongo in a slightly embarrassing way.