It's so cluttered, it's giving me anxiety just looking at those photos. I keep a fairly clean desk, I don't think I could function well in that environment...

But that's a person's own desk. If you wanted to keep a clean desk then surely you could.

Could you? I'm thinking michaelbuckbee[1] is right about the flair thing. I would bet that if you keep a clean, organized desk with no decoration you would get asked about your feeling working there and maybe not be seen as Zappos material.

I'm not sure who's working PR as Zappos but that picture[2] cballard[3] linked to is probably not a good corporate message given the sign in the upper left corner.

1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11239602

2) https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/zap03-15_b...

3) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11239584

Many years ago I worked for a stint at ebay and I was definitely considered a pariah for not flaring out my desk with juvenile toys. I did that in Grade 9 with my locker

I know it's not fair to whoever's desk that is, but I'm tidy/OCD enough that sitting near that disaster would cause me serious anxiety.

"Stig of the Dump" immediately jumped to my mind looking at that [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stig_of_the_Dump

This was precisely my thought as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJtrLKGZZFg