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22 September 2010

#266 Look at your desk with new eyes

The country's leaders want us to work and pay taxes to make the wheels to spin faster. 365 contributes to the national economy by making your job more fun. Here is "Seven things you can do at your workplace".

I won’t lie about my obsessions. I have several. I sometimes think that things will explode when I go by. Like garbage bins or tram stops. When I go into a room with chairs and people I have to sit so that I can see the exit. I prefer to have my back against the wall and a good overview of the room.

That’s who I am. I am 27 years old and it’s nothing I’m ashamed of. I have learned how to function and am open to hear about your obsessions, too.

But there are ways to challenge yourself. Especially in your workplace. Obsessions are made to be broken. Routines as well. You might the rowdy type who likes a cluttered desk. Or maybe you’re the neat type. Either way, there is a point in reshuffling. It's the same reason I sit with my back to the entrance sometimes. Or why I whistle when I walk past a trash can, tapping one finger against the steel basket realizing that the world isn’t about to explode.

1. Move your desk and your chair. Turn them around.
2. Place the pencil jar and coffee cup in new positions and orientations.
3. See what other options you have to change your workplace. Most people might not even want a desktop, rather stand up or lay down like astronauts. Change position, turn around, look another way.

Rearrange your perspective. Rearrange your head.

Text: Navid Modiri

Required time: 
1 hour or less
Cost: 
Free
Cons: 
Some may think that you are annoying and irritating when you keep changing and rearranging. Don’t worry about them. Instead ask what their problem is
Pros: 
Changes sharpen the senses and prevent the moss growing on your chair from returning.
Taggar: tidy, reshuffling, pedant, obsessions, hat, desk, chaos, chair back, 365 things you can do
2 September 2010

#246 Organize a trading table

Bring your old socks to school and see if anyone is interested. You never know.

Bring your old socks to school and see if anyone is interested. You never know.

School has started again, and for those of you who think that it is monotonous with teachers, homework and project work, 365 gives you seven things you can do at your school.

Surveys, in-depth interviews with the country's brightest minds and a group of 20 researchers’ careful research have now discovered that pupils in Swedish schools do not have lot of money to spend. It has been determined that it is time to find creative ways to save money instead of going about in rags. After several years in a laboratory, two of the researchers have developed the Trading Table.

The Trading Table serves as a regular table. The difference is that instead of putting buns and juice on the table to take a coffee break, you fill the table surface with things you do not want. Books, magazines, CDs, clothes, gadgets. The table can be in a corridor at your school. Then the 1for1-rule is in effect meaning that you may take one thing off the table if you put another thing there in return.

Bonus – Trade Trade Trade-collective in Gothenburg

Required time: 
1 day or less
Cost: 
Free.
Cons: 
There are always those who do not follow common rules. It could be that some think that the table takes up too much space and move it.
Pros: 
You can find bargains by switching off the shawl you’re fed up with for a new hat.
Taggar: used clothes, stockings, seven things you can do at your school, hat, free, changing table, 365 things
1 April 2010

#90 Never take your hat off for anyone.

The next worst thing I know is when someone tells me what to do. The worst thing I know is when someone tells me what to do in an unpleasant way. I have therefore difficulty dealing with police officers, janitors, teachers, security guards, parents and bosses. I am therefore very pleased not being in school, not doing illegal things, not going out clubbing very often, not being five years old and not having a boss.

When I was a school in Nyköping with my band the other week the principal came up to me in the cafeteria. He didn’t say please, thank you or anything like how fun that you’ve come to play at my school. He pointed with his whole hand at me and said:

- Take off your hat.

What followed can be read on the blog at navid.gp.se and is a long history. But I can reveal that it ended with me not taking off my hat, and also calling him "a big asshole", walking out of there with my tray, and sitting down in the teachers' lounge instead. It was a much more pleasant atmosphere and there were no adult males around that felt a need to pee on the walls to mark their territory.

So.
Never take your hat off.
For anyone.

Required time: 
One second to say no.
Cost: 
Perhaps a public scolding. Perhaps detention or being thrown out.
Cons: 
This person may become aggressive and totally red in the face. It can be an annoying atmosphere that follows you the rest of the day. You may be in a bad mood from the fight.
Pros: 
You learn to stand up for yourself, to not take any crap, to not do things because others say so. Stronger backbone. Better sleep.
Taggar: obstinate, hat, school, principal