Gonzovation

You ever worked in an office where they have those motivational posters up on the wall? You're, like, stuck in the copy room, making page after page of copies of, say, a huge book where it has to be reduced and held by hand, and every other copy comes out cut off, requiring the book to be repositioned, and you're making 120-page sets of 20, and the machine regularly jams at 17, and you're pulling bits and pieces of shredded paper out of the machine and burning your hand on the fuser, and you're cursing--quietly--while thinking: "For this I went to journalism school?"

And just about when you're beginning to revise your resignation letter in your head, you look up to check the clock you're trying to beat, and you see on the wall some goddamn picture of some goddamn crocus forcing its goddamned head through the goddamned snow, and it has a caption in bold serif saying something like "FORTITUDE" or "COURAGE." Yes? And there's that awful split-second where, in your mind's eye, you can see that beautifully framed print flying out of the copy room like a rectangular frisbee and, with a shattering boom, showering the reception area with glass.

Well, someone's been clever with Photoshop and made motivational posters for the rest of us, featuring a man who got fired from LIFE magazine for kicking a candy dispensing machine to death.

Inspiration! Courage! Bats!