the.com/out tray
Where finished work waits to become someone else's problem.
means A tray or basket on a desk for documents that have been dealt with and are ready to be passed on or sent out.
from Built plainly from 'out' plus 'tray' — part of the paired office furniture 'in tray' and 'out tray' that spread with 20th-century office bureaucracy, back when paper physically moved desk to desk. The 'in tray' caught incoming work; the 'out tray' marked the moment you declared a task finished and launched it onward, into someone else's in tray.
- desk hierarchy
- sits above in tray, below the shredder
- true purpose
- visible proof you are busy
- modern form
- the sent folder, minus the satisfying thud