Meditations in the bored room

I work as a typist. The company I work for spends its time working for other companies by sending them information about how still other companies view them. Or something. Really, I have no idea what the company I work for does. My job has a point, I just don't know what it is. But the company is very big, and very important, and lots of people pay us money to do whatever it is that we do, so that's all right. And being very big, they occasionally feel the need to make us do very stupid, random things.

So, we had a meeting today. Power point demonstrations were involved. Words were spoken, and questions were asked. Several of the departments at work were mentioned, and it was all very well organised. What was it all about? Let's just say I spent the whole meeting staring at the painting on the wall.

In addition to staring at the painting on the wall, I did the following:

- Thought 'I'm so fucking bored!' in the first five minutes, and then vaguely worried about what would happen if I said it aloud;

- Worked out the verses for a corporate anthem to the tune of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Richard Rodgers;

- Thought about the awesomeness of the film The History Boys;

- Stared at the bottom of my can of Vanilla Coke and used it to scratch my chin;

- Went up and down on my chair several times;

- Almost fell asleep;

- Thought up a witty response to an email that was doing the rounds of the office at the moment from some dude who was going on a walk for charity, or something;

- And went back to staring at the painting.

My thoughts about the painting were pretty much as follows. I thought at first that it was a typically ugly and boring example of corporate art. But then a few minutes later I concluded that it was a typically ugly and boring example of corporate art, no buts about it. It was just stupid, a square canvas with coloured dots arranged in it in diagonal rows. The dots looked dirty. That was pretty much all there was to it, although it has to be said there was something mesmerising in the ugliness of the dots that made you keep on looking back at it, just to confirm again if it really was that ugly.

I also wondered, in a pained way, why every company in Australia seems to feel the need to decorate their walls with this sort of crap. Though I had to agree, after a minute of speculation, that the painting in its own way was a good metaphor for this sort of company: ugly, boring, random, and showy in a stupid sort of way.

Really, if it wasn't for the money they paid me, I'd... go and work for another company that did pay me money. Hmmm. Not much point to this story, actually.

It was a fucking ugly painting, though.