The Plant I Was Asked Not to Name
An unnamed office plant, a handwritten warning, and the surprisingly serious politics of keeping one leaf alive.
Photo: Unsplash.
The plant appeared beside the printer on a Monday morning. It was small, green, and accompanied by a note written in red ink:
Please water it. Do not name it.
The first instruction was reasonable. The second created immediate trouble.
By lunch, the design team called it Fernie Sanders. Finance preferred Robert Plant. Someone from sales printed a tiny label that said Asset #PL-01, which was somehow the most offensive suggestion of all.
I volunteered to water it on Wednesdays. This sounded easy until three different people began watering it secretly, each afraid that everybody else had forgotten. The soil became a private swamp. One leaf leaned toward the window as if trying to escape.
We held a two-minute emergency meeting. There would be one caretaker, one cup, every seven days. I was given custody of the cup. Finance added a checkbox to a spreadsheet.
The system worked. New leaves appeared. People stopped discussing the plant, which is what happens to every successful piece of infrastructure.
Months later, the colleague who had brought it finally returned from leave. She read the collection of labels hidden behind the pot and laughed.
“I said not to name it because it already has a name,” she explained. “It’s Kevin.”
Nobody liked Kevin. By then, Asset #PL-01 had stuck.