Daydreaming at Work
by Rachel Deveau
Often I find myself saying, work is especially slow today and I hate it. It is when it is slow that I am left to contemplate my state here at work. How did I get here and why did I think this was a good idea? Why did I want to work in an office environment where any color or sunlight is banned because corporations in themselves defy creativity. Why did I think that it was okay or that I could survive? Being an artist in such an antagonistic environment should cause me to wilt and die, but rather I am finding the opposite. Instead of creativity being pounded into the grayish blue carpet, it is blossoming and thriving if only because I have to fight to daydream.
An average day at the office may look like this to the mundane person: arrive at 8 a.m., sit down at desk, look busy, and maybe accomplish an item or two, flirt with the attractive person of the opposite sex and then go home. Lunch and several breaks obviously will be a part of that day. After work, any sort of alcoholic drink is a must if only to decree that work is hell. And maybe to everyone else, my day looks fairly similar (minus the flirting and often, but not always, the drinking bit). What they do not see are the dreams that dance and play in my head. If they did, they probably would send me to the psychologist.
“She doesn’t fit in.”
A typical day of daydreaming at work could find me seeing vaporous snakes pouring out of the ceiling. Monsters that lie in wait for the ones who work alone and too seriously. Any moment when someone is actually working they seep through the vents like fog creeping up a car windshield and breathe in the industrious aroma until that person forgets about work and begins checking sport facts online.
Daydreaming at work is not something that anyone can fall into. After working for over a year in this office job I see how it easy it is just to sit there and think nothing. For the artist who finds herself trapped in a hostile work environment, daydreaming is a weapon to fight back the creeping spirits determined to steal your soul. To daydream is to survive.
