Dream On
Why your nightmares hold the key to workplace success
- By David Martin
- Smithsonian magazine, July 2008, Subscribe
FROM: HUMAN RESOURCES
TO: ALL STAFF
Dear Employees,
We were very gratified by the positive response to last week's memo, "Cutting Medical Benefits: Healthy Companies Mean Healthy Employees."
This week, we'd like to turn our attention from physical to mental health. Many of you have left notes in our comments box reporting a "worrisome" increase in "unpleasant" work-related dreams. While you might be tempted to interpret these dreams yourself, this is something better left to professionals. What appears on the surface often has a deeper meaning. So, as another employee benefit, your HR department has compiled this guide to four of the most common workplace-related dreams:
THE DREAM:
An annoying co-worker spends most of the morning talking your ear off about non-work-related matters. You get out of your chair, remove your belt, wrap it around his neck and choke him to death.
WHAT IT MEANS:
The belt represents the workplace constraints that are keeping you from realizing your goals. Taking off your belt is a liberating move demonstrating a fresh approach to a traditional problem. By adopting a new management style, you can put to "death" the rigid work formats that have been holding back your creativity.
THE DREAM:
Your boss is lecturing you on how to enhance your productivity. Suddenly, you undo your tie and gag him with it.
WHAT IT MEANS:
Are you frustrated by conventional approaches that don't seem to produce results? By taking off your tie, you demonstrate a desire to "undo" conventional limitations and "silence" outmoded problem-solving methods. You should candidly discuss possible new approaches with your boss.
THE DREAM:
You go to the break room to pour yourself a cup of coffee. You see Sandy from marketing pouring the last cup and leaving the carafe empty. You politely ask her to make a new pot, but she just laughs in your face. You wrench the coffee cup from her hand, sprint back to your office and perform a victory dance.
WHAT IT MEANS:
Coffee often symbolizes the need to stimulate new ideas. The fact that you seized an opportunity suggests that there is tremendous creative energy locked within you waiting to be released. Have you considered a career in marketing?
THE DREAM:
The office photocopier jams. You open up all the panels, trying to find the cause of the problem. After 40 minutes of pointless searching, you throw the photocopier out the window and watch it smash to pieces on the pavement below.
WHAT IT MEANS:
A machine that copies documents clearly represents the inner voice that is inhibiting you from pursuing "original" ideas. But you feel that you have proven yourself able to thoroughly "deconstruct" any problem and are not afraid to shy away from unconventional solutions.
David Martin's essay "Domestic Bliss" appeared in the December 2007 issue of Smithsonian.
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Comments (3)
I've been researching for the article from the January 2010 article Proper Manors by David Martin. Is there anyway i can contact him to get permission to use this article for our newsletter for the Stonebridge Village association. I believe all would love to read it.
Thank you for your time and hopefully your reply.
Donna Kind-Gappa
Posted by Donna Kind-Gappa on June 29,2010 | 12:31 PM
GOING POSTAL!! I heard a rumor once from a friend of a friend that that phrase, "going postal", is strictly VERBOTEN at the USPS.
Posted by georgeof420 on June 25,2008 | 03:48 PM
In the 1980s when they still allowed smoking in the workplace, I was wedged in a cubicle between David and another colleague, both of whom were chronic chain smokers at the time. I was new to the office having come from a job in Africa, the great outdoors and a life of pure air. One day I came very close to taking my office chair and throwing it through a large plate glass window just to get some fresh air five floors up. My pleas to get these two smoking chimneys to stop went unheeded. I knew I was in danger of going postal an elevated danger that was already made me borderline because of the boring bureaucratic work. I left after two short years. Before I left, David did give up smoking by smoking three times as many cigarettes in one week, which almost killed both of us but it worked. He has survived working in the same job by writing humorous articles - mostly concerning the political foibles of US and Canadian political leaders. He has had a great eight year run with George W. Bush and the gang of usual suspects, which led to his first book "My Friend 'W'". Throughout it all, he has managed to keep his job with the federal government in Canada...a true democracy where freedom of speech seems to be the right of every citizen. I continue to remain David's friend after all these years. My advice: leave a boring job before going postal. There's a real life waiting for you in the wide world.
Posted by William Finseth on June 25,2008 | 10:21 AM