Dear LPG,

I read the article that you entitled ‘Making Hands-Free Waiting Time Count’ (►►►) and which has really made me broaden my horizons when it comes to doing something constructive during the (sometimes more than) half hour wait that is the result of choosing to phone the doctor’s surgery, rent office or council rather than visit, and honestly never thought of all the ideas that TF suggested in that piece.

I have to admit that I am recently retired and spent a lot of my working life in an office, on the phone waiting.  It was while enduring this that I found another way to pass the time.  I, like many other office workers, past and present, would often be expecting to be given the alternative telephone number or significant piece of information and thus, I would already have a pencil and paper to hand.  It would take no more than thirty seconds for that pen to make first contact with the paper and the doodle would begin.  As, over the years, the phone call waiting-time has become a more lengthy process, the resulting doodles have evolved and become more elaborate while a walk around the office, and downward glance would expose desks be-showered with the little drawings.

I am also one of the many computer surfers that appreciates the google doodles that are found when we open our web browsing apps each morning and although, their doodles are contrived and deliberate, it is surprising how easy it is to be stopped in your tracks while you learn a little about the person or event that they are highlighting on the day, with the result that you forget why or what you were going to Google in the first place. 

I recently resisted the temptation to be side-tracked by their art and took a quick look at what our doodles say about us, and the findings are more than interesting.  I also have observed that waiting on the phone is not the only time when your writing hand takes a pencil for a meander across a piece of paper.  When talking to (or being talked at by) someone at length, it is surprising what can just appear.

I found a video that offers the findings of research on the subject of what the doodles divulge about their creators and would ask that LPG share it with you.  Finally, if your friends read these pages, I strongly suggest that, the next time you leave a bit of doodled-on paper lying around, you make sure that it is not giving away too much about your character. 

OY, Lee

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