In The Midnight Hour

The Cube has some thoughts on Big Phil's Notes From The Cube of the past couple of days . . .

In the midnight hour, to paraphrase Billy Idol:

You are bored - Bored - BORED!

3rd Shift, Overnight Shift, Midnight Shift, Give It Your Own Name. For cube dwellers this is a time for wishing you were elsewhere and wondering what you did wrong in an earlier lifetime. Nothing challenging of a job-related nature will happen at midnight, this is data-entry time: kid ourselves not - no Company wants creativity inside the cubicles when they can keep a close eye on you.

(Moment to ponder whether that "outside Graphics Consultant" job is worth it. Probably not. When they can give it a specific name like that, they usually mean "outside, per-job worker without benefits." Not quite in the same category as the Unspecified Consultant "retained" to advise Directors, Veeps and Prezes for
high high high fees.)

Having been exiled once to the overnight shift for a three month "special project" so that "input can be constant without system downtime during the day" (lots were drawn, some of us lost, much like a bad sci-fi movie about feral villagers appeasing their corn gods), it is the reflection from this Cube that the act of keeping one's eyes open while performing mind-numbing tasks is infinitely more difficult in the midnight hour than at noon.

This is not a major observation, but one that Must Be Said.

(Note to Cube: Pronouncements seem more profound at the midnight hour than in the light of day. Get some sleep.)