There are various cheesy motivational posters put up around my workplace. If you’ve seen them, you know what I’m talking about. The posters have some inspiring HD photograph of a majestic bird in flight or a majestic stone arch or the majestic ocean or some other majestic crap in the middle. Written underneath it is some big key word in all caps, key words taken from the glossary of the American Standard Guidebook of Boring Corporate Motivational Team-Building Exercises. Underneath the key word is some short adage meant to inspire you and make you feel better about contributing to your team. A simple gigantic banner asking “Is this good for the COMPANY?” might be more cost-effective.
I hate these motivator posters with all my heart. How effective could a $20 poster really be in order to get employees to stop dicking around for five hours a day playing paper football or throwing paper clips at each other?
Today only further cemented my disdain for these motivator posters. The one I saw today said the following:
“DESTINY: The choices we make, not the chances we take, determine our destiny.”
I looked at this and I felt my neurons set on fire, one by one. Isn’t the act of taking a chance a conscious, self-made choice in and of itself? Furthermore, isn’t destiny defined as an inevitable conclusion regardless of actions taken? So even if the choices we make were the true drivers of our immediate direction in life, how can they DETERMINE our DESTINY if the very definition of destiny is founded upon PREdetermination?
There were so many things self-contradictory with this statement that I had to sit down for five minutes to collect myself before moving on with my day. Someone should thank me that I didn’t have a lighter to set the damn thing on fire.
By the way, my favorite Demotivator of all time, courtesy of Despair.com: “BLOGGING: Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few.” The wordplay makes me giddy like a schoolgirl.
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Dude, I totally understand about the blogging to what seems like no one... they actually made fun of me on a stuntsheet this year... It was so motivating (not).
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agree that those posters are mostly useless. Usually, I will look at them, but just for the cool pictures on them, and not even read the "inspirational" part.