In the Office

Why do those artists keep making these condescending and annoying assumptions in public about what they think an office job is? Even though I agree with them an office is not the most inspiring environment, it still can be quite exhilarating. There’s a lot to be done in an office; exciting things like projects, building and creating things, making things better, things that have actual substantial, more than art often has.

I remember Jason making such a remark about how lucky he felt he wasn’t stuck in an office. Maybe good for him, but there are people who are really happy in an office. He can’t say anything like that, because he doesn’t really know how it is to work in an office. I think lots of people working in an office have way more to be proud of than he has.

I was watching Stephen Fry, no I was watching QI with Stephen Fry hosting. He said something to the effect that working in an office is not inspiring. Admitted, the buildings are usually grey and boring. It’s not the buildings matter, it’s the people inside them. And excel is actually a very interesting piece of software to burry yourself in for a day. I mean, call me boring, but when I’m bored at work and I want to do something fun, I’m very likely to start making some excel tool thing with all kind of fun functionalities. Excel is not just typing in numbers and maybe put some things together. Excel is logic thinking, it’s creating and making things easier to enter and do with what you need it doing. It's brain training in the truest sense.

Then again, I am aware of the fact that when you work in an office and especially in IT your idea of what is sexy and good looking does change a little. I must admit I get quite excited at a working excel with smart functions in it. Just don’t go saying my career can never be exciting. Yes, my heart is with art, but when I’m in a project trying to make things work, or creating and building things, that can be thoroughly satisfying.

13 Minutes Rant - Office Life

Office life is a lifestyle. It's usually us typing away on sticky, questionably clean keyboards and with coffee stains on the desk and papers shattered all over it. It's us bending down over papers with eyes nearly popping out trying to make sense of formal sentences too long to comprehend. It's wise cracks on the lowest level and laughing like your life depends on it. Any time, anyone could become your saviour, so laugh, even when it's really not that funny.

Don't you think it's strange you seem to spend almost equally as much time with your co-workers as you do with your life partner? You know them almost just as well; you know how to push their buttons and they know how to push yours. They interrupt when you're writing your 13 minutes rant, or when you're doing some actual working. They whine and complain just as much as your boy/girlfriend does.

People make livings, but they also make lives. They can make a person, but they can also break a person. And since it's your job, that's a sensitive little game we're playing. I love how we realize it and keep it in the back of our minds. I, for example, signed up for a communication course, so I learn how to play the game even better. It's all about acting; the way we appear to each other and the things we do to each other. It's all about how we appear and do it, even more than what. It's incredible what a difference it can make. It can help you finish your project with success, but it can also make your project fail. It's most always us and sometimes external situations.

We can make positive energy and we can practise it. We can make luck work for us, and affect others, our co-workers with it. And so we are back at t he subject of positivity. I just happened to have discussed this with a co-worker and we had to acknowledge, it works in most situations, even in the office. No, especially in the office. We concluded by saying; a good leader manages to motivate his employees with a bit of criticism and a whole lot of positivity.

I Noticed Some Patterns

I looked around the office this afternoon and noticed how dull it is. And then I'm sitting in a smaller space; the bigger space is even worse. I also noticed that, people who spend too much time in these spaces, start looking like how intelligent the walls look, with drool dripping lips and all. I am stuck there too, so now I busy myself with trying to look smart while I type away stupid little blogs like these.

Today I took another look at one of the forums I frequent. I know that when I'm bored, with or without my work, I start posting compulsively. I came across this message of someone who was completely oblivious to the exsistence of JTM-fanfiction, let alone JTM slash fanfiction. That, in itself, was ok, but the reactions it generated, not so much. It's weird how easy people make senseless assumptions. And since I was bored and annoyed, and slightly offended, I replied about that subject in three different topics, but within the same section.

I also took a listen to the latest JTM show. I noticed that JTM's bassist plays the same solo during every show, and that JTM doesn't try to variate either. It used to be different. When the world was still small and settled in the front garden of San Diego, JTM would play often, and often not the same as the show from one evening ago, or like the evening a week ago. Even his pattern has got stuck into the same old trick. Just as dull as my office walls.

I hardly dare to check out outside. It's been rainy all day. It feels like autumn in summer. It glooms even harder than the walls or JTM's shows. If only it was one day, like one evening of JTM, it wouldn't be that bad. But both seem to be on repeat, not shuffle.

I love the occasional flower blooming out of nothing and then dying just as quickly as soon the rain sets in again and drowns all that's too low to the ground.

I don't wanna do the same dance again. I don't wanna sing the same song again, or drive the same old road to work again. I don't wanna do again, but I keep falling back into patterns. I'm just as stuck as walls, or JTM's shows, or the weather.