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For The Signs They Are A-Changin'

When I’m anxious or bored, which pretty much covers my entire existence, I read. Nothing is safe.

I even read signs. I know, signs are for lazy people who don’t want to spend fifteen minutes to find a person that can tell them the same thing that’s printed on signage, but I can’t resist.

I remember being in the principal’s office in grade school. It was a common hangout back then, and it was very boring. It was the first time my seven year old eyes got to see the hilarious office sign that read “Bless This Mess”. It was so hilarious that I got to see the same slogan about a thousand other times in different places as I grew up.

That’s how slogans go from “cute” to “hated”.

I also stared at the word “office” and realized that it could be a compound word of “off” and “ice”, which would be a handy, quick way of telling people to stay off the ice, but was completely wasted by forming a brand new word.

Seven year old me was actually reading and applying critical thinking while sitting in the principal’s office. Any good principal would’ve given me an A and sent me back to class.

Now I tend to judge signs. I’m not judging what they’re saying, but how they’re saying it. Sometimes they’re hilarious, with bad spelling or grammar. Other times they’re very wordy and written by a committee that wants physical proof that their English degree did not go to waste.

Walmart has signs in their bathrooms that don’t follow the usual “Store Merchandise is Prohibited Beyond This Point”. Instead, they explain how shoplifting will ruin your life. I really appreciate the thought behind those signs. The odds of the common shoplifter pausing to read seem low, but still. Good effort.

Most signs should just say “NO”. That’s what they’re really saying. Just put a NO sign in a place where it’s obvious someone is going to try to do something that you don’t want them to do. NO on a door means don’t use it. NO on the street means don’t park there. NO above your computer means get to work. You know why there’s a no.

I’ve seen a lot of breakroom signs, so of course I started putting signs in the comic’s breakroom. I have no clear memory of changing the wording on signs. I think I just did it to amuse myself.

Usually, breakroom signs are pleading with employees to keep the breakroom clean. The only place I don’t remember breakroom signs was when I worked at a university that had a large staff of janitors. The janitors were infamous for never cleaning the breakroom, so it was a little weird.

The other signage was always motivational “We Can Do It!” stuff, which are signs that are really saying “Satirize me!” When staff is stretched to their limits and moral is low, those signs should be taken down immediately and hidden behind the dumpster. If the trash collectors pick them up, it’s happily out of your hands.

I’ve seen a lot of “Your Mother Doesn’t Work Here” signs. It’s almost up there with “Bless This Mess”. Honestly, there’s validation for leaving a mess simply because of that sign. Not only is it condescending, it’s assuming an awful lot about your mother.

By this point, readers were noticing my signs and enjoying them. In some strips, the signs were better than the comic, which is a little disconcerting because I usually write the signs in about five seconds.

Let me pause to say that I’ve seen the sign “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” so many times that it doesn’t motivate, enrage, or annoy me. It does nothing. That’s right. It’s like shooting someone so many times that their body stops jerking from the bullets.

That slogan was somewhat of a mystery to me when I saw it for the first time as a child, and as I grew up and actually argued about its effectiveness with people, I eventually dismissed it the way I did with the Easter Bunny.

Today’s the first day until the day I die. Great. And that motivates me how? Do I have to learn how to walk again? What are we talking about? Why is this a good thing?

It’s easier to think that it doesn’t exist and move on. I’m sure it helped someone, somewhere…sell a lot of motivational signs. Now it’s not much of a big seller.

Sometimes I have a sign because I need to establish a setting, like this night clerk, but I still want to say something about the job. Theoretically, being a night clerk would be awesome if you could just sit and read or (more likely) binge TV, but I’m guessing it’s not the idyllic life.

I was never a night clerk, but I was a graphic artist for newspapers overnight. For whatever reason, they kept the lights off and it was just a large, dark room of glowing monitors. There were graphic artists behind those monitors with headphones on, working away silently. It was more creepy than idyllic.

We still have “Magazines For Men” shelves. I can think of three local stores with this display.

Cars, guns, and fishing. If you’re a man, you’re stuck with those interests.

Alas, according to the magazine people I am not a man.

Whoever installs “Keep Off The Grass” signs lives an ironic life.

This was my most sign-heavy comic, and it works. I was unusually pleased. I believe I took a break from signs for a bit after making this. There’s enough in here for a week of comics.

There is a store that used to have a big sign reading “Why Pay More!” on the outside of each location. It used to drive me crazy. Why were they asking me a question, but using an exclamation point? Maybe they were blatantly asking for shoplifters, “Why pay more? Come steal our stuff!” Perhaps they thought that they charged too much. “Why pay more? Go on, get out of here!” They finally removed those signs from each location and made the world a slightly better place.

Finally, the breakroom sign has had enough. If signs really had self-awareness, I believe this is how it would inevitably end.