Unrest

So, I work. Like most Americans. "They" have been encouraging us, lately, to be creative. (I'm assuming that this ties in with coming up with creative solutions to problems.) However, I was off the day they delivered the tiny bins of playdough and everybody got to make a creation and post pictures of them on our company chat. But, I can do some pretty creative things with spreadsheets. I do things that God never intended, actually. I try to keep in mind the ideals of design. It needs to be easy to read, intuitive and I try to keep my formulas such that a person coming in after me would be able to follow what I was doing and carry on in my absence. This has as much to do with documentation as it does with designing spreadsheets, and I also try to make my documentation easy to follow and pleasing to the eye.

Another person who works in my office is a fidgety sort of person. She is always playing with a pen, knocking over a cup of coffee, running face-first into a wall or something to keep us amused. This afternoon she was playing with her Rubik's Cube – a miniature one that was left on all of our desks close to the time that the playdough was delivered – while she was talking with two other people, one of whom works in our department, the other works close-by. The one who works in our department didn't blink an eye as the cube fell apart in our coworker's hand. It was only a matter of time, really. The person from the nearby department was a little taken aback, claiming that he'd never seen one fall apart. (I mean, I've never seen it, either. That doesn't mean I was surprised to see it happen to her.)

Just this morning on the way to work I was listening to the soundtrack to Hedwig and the Angry Inch. One of my favorite lines from that musical – one that has inspired me since I first saw the movie – is:

That, when everything starts breaking down
You take the pieces off the ground
And show this wicked town
Something beautiful and new*

So, that's what I did. I took the pieces off the ground (out of her hand, actually. They hadn't hit the ground yet.) and made an art installation. I finally got the opportunity to express my creativity in a purely aesthetic way at work. I didn't post a picture of it on our chat, mostly because that was so, like, three weeks ago. But, I'll post pictures here. For you, Gentle Reader. I call it Unrest, a collaboration.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

*Stephen Trask

Sincerely, 

e A r n i e, the Rather Earnest Painter