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April 28 is National Cubicle Day

April 28, 2017/0 Comments/in April

Today is National Cubicle Day. Technically, it isn’t a “national” holiday, having never been decreed by Congress and the president. Then again, none of them work in cubicles, so what do they know?

The first cubicle was introduced by furniture company Herman Miller in 1968. Robert Propst designed the “Action Office” as an alternative to working in open areas, often called bullpens. It had flexible configurations with partitions to pin up current projects and provide privacy, lots of desk space and varying desk heights so people could spend some of their time standing up to keep their circulation flowing.

In the real world, Propst’s partitions, meant as building blocks for various layouts, were used to reduce each workspace to the smallest footprint possible to cram even more people into a room. The standing desk detail was abandoned, although it sounds like a good way for a boss to keep an eye out for any slackers trying to take a walk on the company’s dime.

If it ever becomes legal to catheterize a workforce, we’re confident that proximity fences and shock collars will become standard employee retention features of “systems furniture” design. (Eventually, someone will realize folks need to be hydrated and add a hamster-style water bottle to one corner.) Maybe Jon Sanderson had that in mind when he pulled this incredible April Fool’s Day prank on his coworker:

photo: the Chive

Here are a few more cubicles that almost make us want to work in one. Almost. This one is great, but you can’t see that the key to the restroom is attached to the rim:

photo: Study-Spiration

Check out the chair on the left. It has an alien face hugger in it!

photo: Study-Spiration

This one is pretty sweet, right down to the tiki gods.

If you’re worried that you’d get the boot if you jazzed up your office space, you can always splash out on this inflatable Instant Window:

Happy National Cubicle Day, everybody!

April 22 is In God We Trust Day

April 22, 2017/2 Comments/in April

Today is In God We Trust Day. On April 22, 1864, Congress ordered the redesign of the one-cent piece and the minting of a new two-cent coin bearing the motto. On March 3, 1865, Congress passed another act directing the U.S. mint to place the words on all gold and silver coins.

The phrase is often attributed to lawyer Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the British bombardment of Baltimore Harbor on September 13, 1814, during the War of 1812, which lasted much longer than its name suggests.

Key wrote the poem Defence of Fort M’Henry, which was later set to the tune of a popular British song, Anachreon in Heaven, and renamed The Star-Spangled Banner. In the fourth stanza, like many sports fans, Key expresses a belief that God is on our team’s side.

We include the poem in its entirety because, like us, you may not have seen it. We’ve never heard it at a sporting event. It would be cruel and unusual punishment for the fans and for the singer trying to hit the high notes again and again.

Defence of Fort M’Henry

O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —
O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream —
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havock of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul foot-steps’ pollution,
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home, and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto — “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

On July 30, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a law declaring that In God We Trust must appear on all currency. The first paper money bearing the phrase was issued the following year. He also made it the nation’s official motto, replacing E pluribus unum (Latin: Out of many, one), the country’s unofficial slogan since its inclusion on the Great Seal of the United States created in 1782.

Have a happy and healthy In God We Trust Day!

April 21 is Keep Off the Grass Day

April 21, 2017/0 Comments/in April

Today is Keep Off the Grass Day. It may just be a clever way to stitch together Pot Smoking Day (April 20) and Earth Day (April 22). But there’s an event that it should represent, even though it happened a few calendar days later.

On May 1, 1894, a wealthy Populist named Jacob Coxey arrived in Washington, D.C. with an “army” of 500 men to demand the government create jobs building roads, bridges, etc. to help alleviate unemployment in the depression caused by the Panic of 1893.

Word of “Coxey’s Army” preceded it. In anticipation of its arrival, 1,500 soldiers were mustered, with thousands more ready to be mobilized if necessary. But during the march from Ohio, many lost enthusiasm and left to go home or find work. Other so-called armies, meant to converge on Washington around the same time, had dwindled to nothing before reaching there.

Despite his group’s militaristic name, Jacob Coxey had come not to stage a coup but to give a face to poverty-stricken citizens who desperately needed work. He set out to make a speech on their behalf in front of the U.S. Capitol building. But the moment he stepped on the Capitol lawn, he was arrested for walking on the grass.

Fifty years later on May 1, 1944, at the age of 90, Jacob Coxey was finally allowed to deliver his speech from the steps of the U.S. Congress. Here is a portion of it:

…Up these steps the lobbyists of trusts and corporations have passed unchallenged on their way to committee rooms, access to which we, the representatives of the toiling wealth-producers, have been denied.

We stand here today in behalf of millions of toilers whose petitions have been buried in committee rooms, whose prayers have been unresponded to, and whose opportunities for honest, remunerative, productive labor have been taken from them by unjust legislation, which protects idlers, speculators, and gamblers.

We come to remind the Congress here assembled of the declaration of a United States Senator, “that for a quarter of a century the rich have been growing richer, the poor poorer, and that by the close of the present century the middle class will have disappeared as the struggle for existence becomes fierce and relentless.”

…Coming as we do with peace and good will to men, we shall submit to these laws, unjust as they are, and obey this mandate of authority of might which overrides and outrages the law of right. In doing so, we appeal to every peace-loving citizen, every liberty-loving man or woman, every one in whose breast the fires of patriotism and love of country have not died out, to assist us in our efforts toward better laws and general benefits.

Today, Coxey’s words still ring true. Here’s to everyone who refuses to keep off the grass!

April 16 is National Stress Awareness Day

April 16, 2017/0 Comments/in April

Today is National Stress Awareness Day. It was created in 1992 by Dr. Morton Orman of the Health Resource Network, a nonprofit health education organization.

We’re all aware of stress. Many of us are steeped in it right now. Acute stress can be a positive thing, allowing us to react to upsetting or dangerous situations. But when our lives are filled with seemingly endless problems and anxieties, stress becomes chronic, putting us on constant high alert and exhausting our bodies and minds over time.

Sometimes the most stressful—and inadvertently hilarious—advice doctors, friends and strangers can give is that we must reduce stress. Life is undeniably chaotic. If you can drop everything and move to Bora Bora, by all means, do that.

The rest of us can breathe deeply, look at the sky, take a walk, eat a cookie, hug somebody, draw a bubble bath, watch YouTube clips of kittens. It may not be a permanent fix, but we know what calms us down and makes us happy in the moment.

By the way, if you prefer kale to cookies, be our guest. One thing we don’t recommend right now is picking up a book on stress relief. Maybe tomorrow. Today, have a happy National Stress Awareness Day. Unless you don’t feel like it. No pressure.

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Defence of Fort M’Henry