The annual office festivities are returning. Unless, of course, you still WFH, in which case you will be PAT (partying at home). Annual office parties always remind me of this true story from way back in 2015. (Maybe I can’t forget it because modern art befuddles me. Maybe because corporate communication baffles me. Maybe because cleaning ladies are privy (ha!) to secrets. Maybe all the above.)

There Is No Art to Cleaning Fouled Communication

Here’s nonsense at work, one night at the museum. For some strange reason, cigarette butts, empty champagne bottles, and confetti were arranged as an exhibit at an art museum in Italy. For an even stranger reason, no one bothered to tell the cleaning lady that the trail of trash was high art. Being paid to clean, she did.

More than others, artists and curators understand perceptions are reality. Their livelihood depends not on what buyers see, but on what buyers think they see. And thus on their ability to make buyers think that what they see is much more than what there is to see, if you see what I mean.

According to the news report, the museum joked it had some “bad luck with the new cleaning lady.” I suggest she had some bad luck with the museum. She seems to be the only one there who sees clearly.

Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.