I have the most superb example of corporate marketing non-sense here, intended to exhort me on to higher things during the daily grind and ensure that I am empowered to realise my full potential.

It’s a wireframe diagram of a square box, with a dotted line arcing out of it to a point somewhere outside the box. The point is labelled “Think here”.

OK, can anyone tell me what’s being said here? Anyone, anyone? You at the back? No?

Well, award yourself a point and a pat on the back if you said, “Think outside of the box”. Award half a point if you said, “Ponder someplace else”. If you said, “Don’t be square”, have two points for at least entering into the required spirit. If you said, “Don’t work in HR”, have five points and a life. Award twenty points if you said, “What kind of patronising, empty-headed garbage is this?” And have a lie down if you said something like, “The unknowable cosmic insigificance and need for a personal space to just be for homo sapien in an uncaring capitalist society, where even man’s relationship with God is subject to meta-transcultural displacement”.

So anyway, unfortunately this hasn’t answered all my questions. I’ve got a box here and I’ve briefly stood by it (but on the outside!) for a quick ponder. Having reached zero conclusions, besides noticing a slight itch on my right ankle, I’m mildly concerned that I may not be using the right sort of box. Does it need to be an actual wireframe box? If not, should it be a specific colour? The one here is black, perhaps that’s blocking the thought process? Is the size important (my wife assures me not)? How far outside the box should I be?

Furthermore: if I take this motivational leaflet to the person who designed it, light it and thrust it back up their arse, does that qualify as “thinking outside the box”? Or is that merely an attitude problem and if so, do you have any more diagrams to help me resolve it?