Drinks With Doug

Talking to Walls

Today's Weather: cool at dawn and warm since; not a cloud all day. My garden needs watering tonight.
Today's Drink: Screwdriver, with an extra helping of screwd.


Those who know me know part of my job is to find odd, funny or oddly funny vids floating around the internet ether. The idea is to grab them just at the edge of insane popularity, have a larf or two, and establish in all those who view said highlarity that we will help guide them through the mad crush of the web. Arbitors of popular, in some way. That, and to distract them from the tedium, struggle or diminished hopes of their lives.


Unfortunately this video had the opposite effect on me. It's called the Cube, and it was a made-for-TV experiment by Jim Henson. Yeah, that Jim Henson. Apparently before he settled on felt and ping-pong ball eyes for his metier, he worked in experiemental film. (It's long, but worth a watch. Think of it like a Philip Glass opera: feel free to wander in and out as you like, you won't miss much.) The fact that it's made by Kermit's dad makes it all the weirder.


So I'm wandering in and out of this cool lost arcana from the 70s, when it comes to me. I am the man in the Cube. Doesn't know how he got there, doesn't like being there, doesn't know how to get out or who the oddball characters who traipse in and out are. He spends a lot of time presumably talking to the walls.


So do I. My cube is my work. And my walls are my bosses. The whole establishment of the place, really. You can talk yourself into and out of several personality disorders talking to the bosses; explaining to them why this won't work, asking them why that doesn't work, wondering who will take responsibility when for this and that and fearing the likely outcome that the answer is you. Now sure, every work place runs a little herky jerky. The difference is that when something falls and goes boom, the person responsible for said boom is called to account. Boom is fixed, or it isn't and Mr. Responsible is demoted, transferred, fired or at least roundly mocked for his incompetence and dispiriting attitude.


Work (my work, which from here on out will simply be Work captialized - that is until I get caught at all this and become the one person actually expected to take responsibility, in this case for speaking truthfully and clearly) does not work this way. Boom happens with much frequency, and many mouths start to jaw in many taupe offices about the need for more meetings to target the best way of tracking down the sub-sub-division which is responsible for overseeing the actual...well, if you're still with me you're not cut out for my Work. Fingers point outward in every direction, like a Cushball, but always always outward, never inward.


A colleague today notices a problem. One I've repeatedly noticed, and brought to the attention of Mr. Greyface in Oversized Taupe Office. Too many words taking up too much of my time are spilled, and nothing changes...which I begin to think is the real point of my Work. An absurdist comedy set in a Cube featuring a lead who doesn't know what's happening, and why it keeps happening over and over, completely unaware of the camera (or the director or the playwright) who keeps turning the crank and pressing the absurd button.


I didn't watch it to the end. I don't know if he gets out, if he comes to accept his absurdist dada state, or if we, the audience, leave him as we found him.


Talking to walls.