Constructing an ideal cubicle life with things taken for granted

It is a guarantee that the majority of society will work at least one job, in their lifetime, that is far from ideal. For those less fortunate, they may never escape the cycle. It is during our time stuck in jobs we don’t enjoy too much, that we are able to reflect and determine what qualities and aspects that we’d like in a job to make it more enjoyable.

My very own mental incitement

As I’ve briefly mentioned before, I am not in what I would consider an ideal job. I have my list of complaints about my job position. This is not to say, in any way, that it is a bad job or bad company to work for. It is just not a position that fits what I want in employment. I have held the job for little over a year now and at present moment, I do not see me leaving yet. My gripes were not immediately developed or apparent, but slowly emerged over time. When they started to surface, I began to reflect on previous jobs and which parts I yearn for. I started listing them, I noticed that some were very basic things I think people take for granted. Next I started adding others that I would love to have in a job or at a company who employs me. Last, I organized them into four categories. Those categories are: physical, mental, team, and technology. The physical and mental categories are more the elements, I feel, are taken for granted. The team category is related to working with others, and technology has the tech elements that in my ideal job. While many of these can, and do, apply to freelancing, the lists are targeted at cubicle life and working for X company.

We are for the four

Physical

• able to leave your desk and roam around whenever needed or desired
• start whenever you get to the office (within a certain limits. Employer still deserves full day’s work.)
• ties, suits, and dress-up wear are only worn for special occasions, while semi-casual is normal attire.
• The company encourages employees to lead a healthy lifestyle and does what it can to help accommodate and facilitate one, within reason
• An option to work remotely if chosen, or temporarily on the go, like at a coffee shop or bakery.

Mental

• your mind is able to, and encouraged to, wander in order to help the creative process.
• a healthy imagination is a almost requirement.
• freedom to ignore surroundings if you choose, in order to avoid potential distractions
• allowed to let your creative juices flow
• doodling on the job is encouraged if not required

Team

• water cooler or break room chatter permitted so people can catch up with each other as well as gossip about whats going on in their fields of study.
• the occasional team meetings are as likely to occur at a nearby local restaurant as they are in a board room
• peers and managers not only challenge you to push your personal and creative limits, but also help you exceed with those
• you appreciate your coworkers, enjoy being on the team with them, and they return the sentiments
• team camaradere

Tech

• Internet is a requirement, not a privilege
• random Internet surfing is allowed, within reason
• the best tools and software for the job are used and kept uptodate
• you have permission to be a headphone rockstar
• mobile device use is called one of the following: customer interaction, marketing, research, or product testing.

While these lists are in no way set in stone, I feel they comprise a nice foundation for others to build upon and evolve.

What about your experiences? What would you add to the categories above or perhaps what category would you add? Are there any listed that you would like to dispute? Is my logic skewed on some of them?

Look back on your employment experiences and let me know of any ideas. I’ll add them to the appropriate list and attribute credit.

2011 Addition

Jason Fried’s TED talk contributes a lot of interesting ideas related to why work doesn’t happen at work. It may dispute my text above, but still offers a lot of good points.

There are likely still many of you asking and wondering why someone may want to go through all the effort. As I have already stated above, if you have something to say that requires more than 140 characters, you can get it all in one tweet. Obviously, creating one by hand would require more time and effort than typing it through the site or your favorite twitter client, but imagine the joy someone will experience when they get a handwritten message directed at them. I know my first @mention, directed at emtaylor (Twitter), made her day.

Writing it out on a piece of paper and then posting a picture of it, also provides a broad canvas that allows for creativity to flourish. You can draw little doodles, provide decorations, or anything else you can think of. I KNOW twitter is full of creative types and I don’t see why we can’t show that off more.

Just because you write out the actual message on paper or some other medium, doesn’t mean you can’t use your allotted 140 characters. Some of them would be used for the image URL, but the rest can be used for more @mentions and #tags.

I know well enough that any idea or trend that grows online is very hard to control, if not impossible to. That said, I am not setting any “method of use” for handwritten tweets, just explaining the origin and some uses that have already come to mind. I don’t know where the idea will go, if anywhere, but I would love to see it go somewhere.

Be inventive, be creative, make someone’s day, pay it forward…do SOMETHING.

Handwrittentweets examples

• gracesmith (Twitter) sent this one to all of her followers here
• domencolja (Twitter) did this one as an alternative to dribbble as he lacks an account here
• designcoyote (Twitter) sent this one quoting Judy Garland here
• rudedoodle (Twitter) asked this good question here

What about yours?

With the following code, <?php function twitter_shortcode( $atts, $content = null ) { return '<a href="http://twitter.com/' . $content . '" title="' . $content . '\'s Twitter Profile">' . $content . '</a>'; } add_shortcode('twitter', 'twitter_shortcode'); ?> I can wrap a username in [twitter] [/twitter] and have it output the full link, like this (Twitter)

Edit

Like so: (Identica)

Personal Website

Depending on how much you pay attention to Smashing Magazine, you may recognize the current michaelbox theme as one they’ve posted on their website as a freebie. I remember at the time that I really wanted to have a functional website again, but had no original theme ready. Thus, I went with this one for the time being. One of my highest priority projects at the moment is an original theme for myself. This also allows me to work on the entire mockup process that I’ve never fully submerged myself in. I’m forcing myself to learn the process on the worst client possible…myself. While my mockup is still needing plenty of work to really be great, I must admit that I am liking what I have so far. I will likely start asking for peer reviews once I get some more of it done, so I’d appreciate anyone willing to help. The one detail that I am willing to divulge at the moment is that I am definitely breaking away from a common convention of a website. Once it’s complete and implemented, I hope it tops off a very professional website that can show off with pride.

Designer Illustrated

At some point earlier this year, I don’t recall when, I stumbled onto the idea that creative types are always, ALWAYS, creating for others, but rarely get created for, outside of their own personal projects. It was at that point that I felt I could help change that fact. Coupling this with my strong interest in vector art, I came up with what I named the “Designer Illustrated” project. Once these details were fleshed out, I set out to find my first willing subject. I asked around to some of my followers on twitter, and had some people turn me down at the time. However, the wonderful and lovely @gracesmith expressed willingness to participate. I then proceeded to obtain a photo from Grace as well as gather personality information about her to work with. I recently had the illustration at a point that I thought was at a quality to present, but I decided to ask for some feedback first. The feedback given to me showed that it was too busy of a graphic and the central part of it was under-developed. I took the feedback well and decided that it’s best to keep working on it. I know that I want it to be awesome.

Unique Interview

Speaking of @gracesmith, she has also been kind enough to agree to an interview with me. For some reason, I felt that in graphic designers interviews, the questions always seem to be the same, and I wanted to present something new and different. I sent her my questions earlier today. I am presently awaiting her reply and hope to have the interview posted sometime early next week. The questions are a mix of humor and seriousness that I hope will be worth the read.

A very doubtful chicken

Last project that I am willing to leave you with in this post is my second domain. I just can not seem to pinpoint a good use for cynicalchicken.net. One idea that keeps sticking around is a place for me to be a bit uncensored if the need arises. Michaelbox.net is meant to be my professional website and present me in the best possible way. The other idea that I have is to turn it into a multi-author blog where a group of people could all make posts about a set range of topics. Nonetheless, I am open to any ideas that someone may have and will listen to any suggestions for it.

With the projects listed above as well as more left unmentioned, and a 40hr/week job, things can tend to move a bit slow. However, I hope to push these projects far and release them for everyone to see and appreciate.

However, as I am a firm believer in manning up in your own field, and I hope that this theme is not a permanent one, and that I implement my own work in the near future. I know I certainly have ambitious and big plans for Michaelbox.net and I am still in the beginning of it all.

Anyways, now I am back in some form and hopefully you’ll hear from me a bit more often about all your favorite graphic design, web design, and free software bits.