In elementary school I saw a movie that took place in an office, where men went to work. I do not remember what the movie was about, but remember the deadly boring, stifling, grey, scene. It was an open office, with cluttered formica and steel desks, white blinds, a white wall without pictures, and men (it was all men back then) in grey suits with dead eyes seated at the desks looking at various papers. The men were not architects (as was my father), not engineers, not teachers, not police, not firemen: they were businessmen. I though that being a businessman must mean this intensely boring, grey, meaningless life working constantly and accomplishing nothing.
For some reason, that scene stuck in my head like cement. Forty years later, I can’t forget it. I avoided studying business in college, and — thank God — have managed never to work in a place like that. Over the years I’ve also learned a few things about business, and no longer believe that it is the boring, grey, uninspiring, pointless chase after money that I did as an elementary school student. But the mental picture is still there.
After reading Umair Haque’s latest blog over on FreshMix, I wonder if he saw that same scene, only instead of seeing it in a movie he saw it as one of the men in that office. And decided not only to leave, but to persuade the others who worked there to leave as well.