Office Politics

I have trouble paying attention if I have nothing to do with my hands. This is the primary reason I am such a judicious note-taker. However, I’m not always writing anything related to the subject at hand; often I’ll just blather aimlessly on paper, somewhat akin to Julia Cameron’s morning pages. It’s a good way to keep my hands occupied so my mind doesn’t wander too far. And if my mind does wander, I have a handy place to jot down stuff I want to remember later.

One day I started running out of regular things to doodle. I was in an interminable meeting, during which I had no notes to take and no thoughts to contribute, so I ended up vaguely sketching the other people in the room. They weren’t exactly perfect copies, but I found it was good practice since I was using a somewhat leaky Bic Velocity Gel pen on plain old notebook paper. No erasers, no correction fluid, none of that.

Then one day one of my coworkers recognized himself. I was both flattered and embarrassed, but mostly surprised. I hadn’t expected my drawings to be good enough to be at all recognizable. My other coworkers started showing interest in my doodles. I’ve gained a weird sort of notoriety as an artist among engineers. One in particular has been encouraging me to draw the entire office. Anyway, I’ve decided to share the lot with you all here, just in case you’re curious. I’ve made them all the same size, though the quad-rule in the notebook makes it fairly easy to discern relative sizes. Not all of them resemble their inspiration; often I’d start drawing someone, screw up irreparably, and just make the rest ridiculous.

Do you doodle in inappropriate situations? What do you draw?

  1. I make continuous loops of cursive f’s. Other than that, I’m not much of a doodler. When I get bored, I tend to start writing notes to myself in backwards script. (I heard da Vinci could do it and taught myself in high school. Still can’t do it with my left hand, though.)

    • Writing backwards? That’s awesome! I’d love to see a sample if you wouldn’t mind scanning it in. Do you write right-to-left then?

  2. I do write right-to-left when I’m writing backwards. I’ll see if I can’t scan something in!

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