You can find beauty in almost anything if you really look for it. Paying attention to details and learning to notice interesting things in normal situations is a cool trait to have as a designer.
I had an interesting interaction today at work. It reminded me that creativity can exist in places that don’t feel creative at all. I currently work as a customer service representative at a company that sells copiers. My job description doesn’t necessarily involve much creativity or artistic expression. I mostly work on solving technical issues and placing orders for customers. A customer that I was on the phone with told me that he had a “ridiculous” question, so I was instantly intrigued with what he had to ask.
He was loving the on-hold music that played before I picked up the phone and asked what it was called because it was very soothing. I had never been asked that before, and I had no idea what to tell him, but I made it my goal to find out what the music is called. I got his contact info and told him I would let him know once I found out. I reached out to the IT department at my company because they set up the phone system, so I assumed they would know. I didn’t really have high expectations from them because I know how busy they are, and finding the name of the music would not be their top priority, but to my surprise, I got a response a few hours later. One of the IT guys found the song name, but he didn’t know the artist. It was just the default song that came with our phone system, so I was surprised that someone had such an interest in it. I let the customer know anyway, and with the name of the song, he found the artist, and he was so grateful for my help. In his email he said:
“It’s nice to find pleasant art like this by coincidence and even nicer to find people willing to help with trivial things such as these.”
His email stood out to me and reminded me to look at the world with a different perspective. You will find what you are looking for, so if you look for beauty, you will find it.