Harvesting the Old Office

It seemed like an essential need for space at the time.  Like many physicians or our era, by the close of the  last decade, a solo practice became nonviable.  Net revenues dropped far below what I could make as an employee, to say nothing of the burdens of operating the practice and investing in expensive computing capacity for what would likely be less than ten more years as an active physician.  An attractive job offer came my way and I accepted it.  After eight years in the new location I retired.

Ownership creates freedom, but it also creates expense.  A costly tail premium got paid.  Records went to storage with a monthly fee that became non-activity after about two years.  At the end of the legally required seven years retention, I arranged destruction, which priced at about another year's rental.  And twenty years of practice generates stuff, most of which could not be transported to my new digs.  As a result, my cleanout specialist recommended a nearby storage unit to house payroll records, old tax forms, a huge bookcase that cost $400 from IKEA, a laser printer, enough stationery to supply quite a number of poor children at back to school, a coat rack, and nearly 20 years of Franklin Planner refills in their annual storage binders.  The monthly fees came out of autopay so I didn't really notice it.  When I retired, more stuff from the final eight years belonging to me personally found it's way there.

One of the most stupid expenditures is to pay a monthly fee for stuff you don't want, which is virtually everything there.  Financial forms have passed their statute of limitations.  Our state will shred two boxes of paper a month, so I have become a regular at the site adjacent to the landfill the first Wednesday of every month.  Appointment and payroll logs gone.  Tax submissions now unreadable.  At the rate of three storage boxes a week, I should be done by year's end.  I can finally see the floor.  Copier cost $500 but it's bulky, missing a key tray and could be replaced for a lot less than I pay to store it.  Off to the state's electronic recycling bin.

Some stuff has personal value.  I had carefully wrapped a series of mugs in newsprint.  They are mementos, logos of my alma maters and places I visited with my son when we toured colleges.  I should be able to run them through the dishwasher and line them up for display in My Space.  I bought a big globe at a yard sale.  That will find a home in my house.  Along the way, I purchased three pre-insulin medical texts from book clearance sales.  Probably have little monetary value but tell me something about my medical roots.   Those come home.  And the big IKEA bookcase will fit just right in my bedroom, which never has enough shelf space.

There was a show on TV called "United Stuff of America", a series of mini-documentaries on how various usually unimportant museum artifacts summarize key events in history.  My son's college tour is in those mugs.  My interest in diabetes includes times before I was part of that care.  The countries on the globe were not there when I learned the geography of Africa at Kakiat Junior High School.  All moments of my adult life.  None worth a monthly storage fee.