Life Cubed

We strive to grow up, become individuals with our own unique sense of humor and creativity, and as human beings always seem to go from the frying pan into the fire (so-to-speak).

It's funny how when we are children, we are at our most creative selves, but we are stifled then by our parents/authority figures, telling us how to think, what's appropriate, having our vast, open minds zipped up and shut down by people who are supposed to be teaching us how to tolerate, survive in, and "improve" the world we live in. So we grow, and learn, and if some of us are lucky enough, we can take on the task of thinking for ourselves, find out things through life experiences, and refusing to fall in line and do what is expected or deemed 'right' by the masses. We can choose to go our own way, and hopefully ascend to a higher truth than the sheep of the world.

We're rolling along so great, marching to the beat of our own drum when somewhere, somehow, we take a wrong turn at Albuquerque and we end up having all of our insanely creative molecules contained in a little 3-4 wall 'home away from home' called a "Cubicle".

Oh, so cozy.

Some are worse than others, some have high walls and you can get a bit of peace and quiet if you happen to be positioned in a corner over by the wall, but then there are cubes like mine, right on the corner of a grid next to the walk way and caddy-cornered to the busy conference room where all of the loud meetings are held by higher-ups with no apparent knowledge of an "Inside Voice". It also seems that when we are housed in a cubicle environment, others can no longer pick up a phone receiver and have a private conversation, but perpetually function on 'conference call mode'. The height of distraction.

There are many more perks to being squared off, such as the 'Whack-a-Mole' effect, everyone stands up and looks at one another, shouting over the cubicle wall, up and down taking on the appearance of the Whack-a-Mole game. People will just walk up and interrupt you whether you are busy, trying to focus in the middle of a very tedious moment or not, or have loud conversations standing behind you while you, yourself happen to be desperately trying to have a phone conversation with a client. There is no peace. One of my hugest pet peeves about Livin La Vida Cubuloso is that people who pass by your station, always have to make eye contact, so you feel forced to make the eye contact back and smile, perhaps make a quick quip about the weather, which would be fine if the same person didn't 'look and smile' every time they pass by, and that can be up to 150 times in a given work day.

So what do you do? Find yourself with ear blisters from holding the receiver under your neck executing 'fake phone calls' to avoid certain interactions, and escape bathroom visits to hide from possible "Asperger Syndrome sufferers". It can be very emotionally and mentally draining. Oh but the bills stack up, and we must keep paying them. Unless a lotto ticket hits, or we are one of those lucky people to invent something, or start our own venture and form our very own ant farm of cubed inhabitants, what is the alternative? Slaves to the grind, we'll be.

Kudos to you, if you're one of the lucky ones who hasn't developed 'corners' on your normally soft, ambiguous body design... but for the rest of us sharp-edged minions, there's at least the occasional funny cat video or weekly web trend to keep us warm.