Baby's first cubicle-cum-art gallery

Not sponsored by Post-It or Sharpie, but it should be

I call her…Mona and Lisa

I interned at Hachette Book Group in Manhattan the summer after I graduated from college in 2013. Since I didn’t have to go back to school that fall, I was asked to stay on through to December. During the main summer internship, with a bunch of other college-aged young adults, we were set up with computers around a big table in a conference room. But after the formality of the summer program ended, I was moved closer to the folks I was working with. This meant an exciting development: I got a cubicle.

To be honest, most of my time there was spent worrying about money. The internship paid $11 an hour, but I had no benefits. My very cool boss tried to get me hired full time, but couldn’t get approval. So in between projects, I tried to discretely look for jobs, and when I wasn’t doing that….I was doodling.

Behold, my documented collection of doodles drawn on Post-It notes with whatever color Sharpie I had nearby or could swipe from the supply closet.

These are 2013 cell phone captures of the drawings I taped up around my cubicle walls. Though grainy and poorly lit, I see them as a kind of treasure trove of creativity from an uncertain, exciting, and hopeful time.

I have no idea where the little drawings are now. It’s possible I saved them in a sketchbook somewhere, but more likely, they met their demise in an industrial wastebasket.

Lastly, I’m including this photo of my sketchbook at the time because I thought it’d be fun to see more of the cubicle, and also because you can see my two favorite Sharpie colors in rotation, bottom right. 😛

Those sweet, sweet cubicle views