A filing cabinet is a place where you can lose things systematically.

The quip satirizes bureaucracy’s faith in “systems” by pointing out that organization can become a more polished way of misplacing things. A filing cabinet symbolizes rational order—labels, folders, categories—yet the joke suggests that such order may only disguise confusion, delay, or forgetfulness. The word “systematically” is the pivot: it implies method and control while admitting failure (the items are still lost). As a workplace aphorism, it also critiques how administrative routines can prioritize process over outcomes, creating the illusion of efficiency while information becomes harder to retrieve in practice.