Offices attract gray in the same way that celebrity sex scandals attract comedians. The suits are gray, the ceiling tiles are gray, even the border of web browser you’re looking at now is gray. Its like the entire office was inspired by an overcast sky.
Gray has been so promiscuous it has even impregnated all of the blues and reds, such that they’re a little grayer for being in the office. It appears that even my colleagues are turning gray. Only last week I found my first gray hair! Admittedly, it was in a canteen sandwich.
So why does gray reign supreme? Would too much spectral stimulation lessen our productivity? Is it that dirt doesn’t show up on gray, just like it doesn’t show up on a CEO’s track record? Is it that companies don’t wish to discriminate against any one color above another, so they combine them all to leave gray? Is the whole color scheme a homage to the age of cement? Is it that most colors fade to gray and the office hasn’t been refitted since 20 B.G.? (B.G. means “Before Google” because Googling “Google” gets 5 times more hits than Googling “God.” Its official, Google thinks Google is bigger than God.)
Surely the mind-numbing monochrome of the office walls is worse for productivity than a splash of color here and there? But wait, what’s that I see in the corridor? It looks like something is making a stand against the soft beechwood and drab office tones. My goodness: its corporate art!
If ever there has been a market for a series of geometric shapes on a canvas then surely its the office wall. I have seen more green triangles and orange circles than you’d find in an Oompa-Loompa’s wardrobe. Truly, these are the nourishment that my soul so badly craved. Oh “Abstract 16,” and “Untitled, Red / Green,” what muse inspired thee?
Although company art is as nondescript as whatever new burger McDonald’s is now touting, there is one small gem to be found next to each painting: the art label. Since no one looks at the art, no one looks at the label either. This means two things: (1) you can rename a piece of art whatever you wish and no one will notice and (2) anything else can become art by adding a label. If I had a dollar for every fire alarm that I put an art label next to then I would have one dollar. Its a start. I’d also get a dollar for my masterpiece “L’Interrupteur De Lumière,” French for light switch. Seven months an no one has yet noticed.
And Finally…
People that furnish offices think it’s endlessly funny to electrostatically charge the entire workforce. If work gives you a warm fuzzy feeling it’s probably just the nylon carpets. My solution against static shocks is to trail a chain of paper clips from the back of my shoe, keeping me earthed at all times. The only other option is to wear a sling so that other people will open the door or call the elevator.
There are other hazards you should be aware of around the office. Be on alert for chairs that have arm rests at desk height. You only need put your hands on the arm rests and enthusiastically tuck in your chair for your colleagues to hear you scream that you think the chair is sexually active.
;)
{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
OMG, the last time I did that I screamed the same thing! Like about 5 times, too. That effin’ hurts.
Ahh, office art! Rivaled only by hotel and doctor’s office art! Thanks for the laugh!
Even the grafitti at my place of work is gray!
Concur! At least we have pictures of airplanes and ships… oh wait… they’re grey too… Dammit… Re the chairs, I got stuck with buying chairs for the conference room, so I got fixed height that DO fit under the table
Excellent post!
Too funny! Here I have been trying to perfect my techniques with different media, and all I had to do was add a label (a la french lightswitch)
Gray is the new grey.
Do you think there are people who won’t understand the last scenario?
grey is better than fuckin’ shitty eighties flower pictures in baby pink and baby blue… or how about a chair that doesn’t even get close to fitting the hand made desk thingy I have to sit at. Crapola!!!!!
I was once charged with the job of hiring a “designer” to decorate our new offices. Is it wrong that I got a mate of mine to wander around talking enthusiastically about “dynamic space” and “modular efficiency”, then bought the same old shit with splashes of orange (the company colour) and pocketed the astronomical fee the “designer” charged? Oh, it is? Well then… never mind, didn’t happen…
)
So true…office buildings are quite drab and boring. I hadn’t thought of it before. Love the ‘light switch’ in French on the painting!
Entertaining, as usual. Keep up the good “work”!
“B.G.” You are hilarious!
I used to hate my chair for that very reason that you described. What’s the point of arm rests if we can hardly use them?
I once sat down on my chair and a big heavy spring flew out across the room – has any one lost their life due to their office chair? So close to being remembered for something!
Naturally I don’t see anything wrong with grey. Gray on the other hand…
How I wish you’d been around in the office I worked in – I could have had great fun hunting down your little labels, as I’m sure they’d have brightened my day considerably….Especially “L’Interrupteur De Lumière.”
The office is a dangerous, evil place.
RnPB Chapter 012
With all that gray, and grey, I’d be apt to bust someone in the nose for just a spot of color!
It’s like working in a bowl of cold oatmeal.
Wicked! Turning my head I see; the top of a small orange wall, the white paper infront of me, the dark-grey Dell I’ m using & GREY! I think I want to tell myself I’ m 75 and buy grey shoes, it creeps on you.
‘Only last week I found my first gray hair! Admittedly, it was in a canteen sandwich’. GREAT LINE! Who’d have thought google got more hits than god, I sure didn’t.
Nice one office rebel!
As a typist I never used arm rests, and then when I was promoted I refused to use them because they interfered with my ability to work. By the time I retired I was using an exercise ball!
I hear that grey is the new beige.
True story.
I must be honest, my office is a much larger fan of beige. Like highly creamed coffee.
@ Office Scribe – how right you are! I tipped my hat to beechwood in the passage because I have noticed offices run the gambit from beige to gray.
I have always looked upon beige as a rather dull color. Indeed, another name for the specific beige “mode beige” is “drab” (thank you Wikipedia).
Whichever color scheme the office has chosen it will be infused with a whiff of ennui. Anyway, back to work I go…
*snirk* – and gosh, I get to work at home, with a view of the great smoky mountains – oh dear …la la l a ..la tee dah *teheehee*
Corporate honchos are just playing it safe. Non-descriptive, abstract artworks make it safe, assuming they won’t offend anybody. AND I love your idea for Art Labels! MUST TRY NOW! And seriously, Marcel Duchamp did that with the urinal! You should try that one too.
Grey day, grey sky, grey office. why do they go and jump off the roof.
I greatly enjoy your humor and envy your cleverness.
Is it true about the hair in the sandwich? I hope not.
What color would you paint your office?
I hate gray. It’s so nothingy.
How’d you get so many followers, dude? My goodness.
My solution against static shocks is to trail a chain of paper clips from the back of my shoe, keeping me earthed at all times…
Great – loved the visual!
Love the title with the tease of ‘grey’. Spelling gray with an ‘e’ is one of my pet peeves. Although many would say the spelling is a gray area, even dictionary.com will correct grey to gray then make reference to grey as a name instead of the color. Great post. I blame the gray walls I am looking at for my rant.
i would look like a rainy day if i wore grey! it’s so boring! maybe people think it makes them look serious or something
@ Stephanie,
You have asked a great question: what color would I paint the office? Personally I would go for greens and blues but I appreciate that might not be to most people’s tastes.
Generally, I would let the workers decide because they have to work there. I’d rather be in a place where I ‘get’ to work, not where I ‘have’ to work.
For that to happen I need three things: (1) satisfaction in doing the work itself, (2) I get to produce something cool at the end and (3) adequate rest from the work. This is not my criteria – it comes form William Morris’ “Useful Work Versus Useless Toil.”
As an outside idea I might give each employee pots of paint and a brush on their first day and say “You’re working here, you decide.” There was a talk about “Tinker School” on TED.com, where kids learn how to use power tools and build cool things. When the kids aren’t able to build any more because they get stuck, they decorate. Then they find solutions and move on. The point is the human urge to decorate.
Would any of us choose to decorate our walls gray? Perhaps some would but let let choose it! Great question Stephanie. Thank you.
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
Talk about a coincidence! We had Wonkamania Day today in my Kindergarten class and everybody got to dress up as their favorite character. You should have seen the little oompa loompas running around.
As for grey, never wear it, don’t look good in it!
A coupla things:
It wasn’t so long ago the Beatles (or at least John) was banging on about how they were more popular than God. And the Beatles are now so-ooo Sept 10.
And have you ever noticed how poorer countries dress more colourfully? (Sorry spell check is freaking out on ‘colourfully’, but I am Australian – so … suck) Think – U.S , Sydney, London versus Vietnam or India. Lunch hour, on the streets.
In our old building, we had areas marked out by colour. We all thought having one called the ‘grey area’ seemed like someone’s idea of a joke.
Oh lord. An office meeting was called at my work place to discuss with all of us (to make us feel like we matter) the new colour scheme of the first floor. Votes were taken and it came up that bright colours such as greens and oranges, reds and yellows (no I do not work at McDonalds). So, end result: office was going to be colorful and stimulating. Good.
Colour that was chosen for the first floor offices?
Gray.
Sigh.
This is so funny. I won’t spell the colour/color because we spell it with an ‘e’. Monkey Man might get me.
Oh my gosh! You must work where I do!
Y’know, our workplace is blues and greens, but they have so much grey in them I sometimes forget that they are blue and green. I’m just glad we have windows now. We used to work in the basement, in the old county morgue!
Great post! So true, the grey doldrums are pathetic. I hope to never work in a ‘typical’ office environment again. Although I have hope that the world is changing, and these life-sucking environments are being replaced with an awareness that we are human. And if that doesn’t appeal to the powers in charge? We produce more when we FEEL human.
Why not liven things up with a little puce, seasick green, or 70s rec room shades of orange and brown? Perfect for the office!
Oompa-loompas! I love it! I have something for you over at my blog, so stop by and get it!
http://2010-year-of-miracles.blogspot.com
My cubical is grey
Ya get a gray day with a gray cubical and a gray office, no wonder depression’s on the rise!
Have a great day!!!
Interesting article. I don’t follow feng shui but I do agree with the idea that certain colors in a room make you feel a certain way like painting the kitchen a sunny yellow makes you feel happy and awake or painting a bedroom cool colors like blues and greens makes you feel more relaxed. So making everything gray to be (and supported by your article) makes you feel bland and stifles creativity.
And good point about the corporate art. I like to think I’m open-minded about modern art but the color field artists like Mark Rothko just make me…irritated. “Oh, its a red square…inside a red orange square. BRILLIANT!” I mean, I’m not saying I like ALL art that’s supposed to look like something but…just painting random circles and triangles seems…lazy to me.
BTW, thanks for following my silly “art-toon” blog. This was the day after one of my good friends actually looked at my blog and was like “This is awesome!” so I’m on a cloud, murmuring “I AM loved!” XD
Our office is green. I’d cry if it were grey.
http://workforced.com/