Hump Day - The Box

photo credit timmyGUNZ (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) 

As everyone SHOULD know... Wednesday is HUMP DAY!  What does this mean?  Hump everything in sight?  (wear protection please.  I even have knee pads for this event.)

Since hump day is that dreaded mid week burnout day, I figured a little sit down philosophy would be in order, so for hump days to come, you can ignore my posts totally knowing I'm going to post something from the inane depths of what's left of my mind.

To start off, there's a particular phrase that really has struck a nerve with me, and I feel creates twice the suffering especially by the time it's been heard a few times daily leading up to the midweek blues.  That phrase is "Think Ouside The Box".  This to me is one of the most harmfully overused phrases I've heard in my life.


You might already be nodding your head simply sick of people saying this who use this as a catch phrase to make their managerial ineptitude seem in line with everyone else's...   but there's more to this than just overuse.  This phrase has deep roots in the failure that is noncomformity.  Remember high school?  Where you had all the cliques, and a side clique of people who all seem the same because they are doing the absolute opposite of others to differentiate themselves?  Do you ever notice the failure of this?  It's like going into a small but nice restaurant that has mirrors on one wall to make it look like the room is larger than it is.  You are still inside the "box" but someone just made you think there's another box you are looking at in the mirror.  Stupid humans.  Shitting is shitting, no matter if you do it inside the box or out.  (Oh do I love The Onion:  http://www.theonion.com/articles/freethinking-cat-shits-outside-the-box,8945/)

Reality here, when you make outside the box into the norm, then you simply have changed the definition of the box to be outside the original box.  You MUST have a box defined as the norm in order for the outside of the box to exist.  Headache yet?  Good, that means that the bug they implanted in your head is trying to make you resist seeing reality for what it is.

By David Shankbone (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons 

More simply put, in order to think outside the box, there has to be a box.  The box is a great thing, it's safe and defined, where you can be productive away from the chaos around you.  The REAL outside the box thinking is moreso simply knowing that you should probably exit your box to relieve yourself instead of sitting in your own mess.  Or perhaps realizing that when you don't have what you need inside your box, you might want to step out and look around for what you need.

Tip for management:  Don't use this phrase...  if you really want to shake the tree, why not go to an employee who really is too rigid of thought and whisper to them "you know...  there are times it's ok to break the rules." with a smile.  Now just pray they don't decide this is a go ahead to organize that surprise flash mob style cross dressing fashion show in the middle of the executive restrooms.  Or... maybe pray they do.  THAT's some outside the box work that perhaps the execs deserve when they use that phrase...

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