Thinking Outside the Box

Today I got another chance to quote myself on the subject of the tech world's lack of diversity.

The rest of us think outside the box because we've never been allowed inside the box.

Here's why the quote sprang to mind. Once again, a Windows 10 update messed up Microsoft's Edge. I looked to Microsoft Answers Forums and someone recommended uninstalling and reinstalling IBM's Trusteer software. Yes, I thought, that has solved previous Windows 10 problems. Perhaps Microsoft includes this annoyance to get people to abandon Trusteer and move to a Microsoft product. But simple incompetence could be the cause, such as Microsoft only hiring 20-something males to write and test software.

As far as I know, I'm the inventor of the quote and variants but other people may have had similar ideas. Here's one of my variants:

Outsiders routinely think outside the box. Duh.

This past spring the concept was the basis of my 10-minute play, My Contribution. It was produced in a staged reading by Playwrights' Center of San Francisco as part of PlayOffs - Round 2. The characters are a young ~20-something man and an old woman, ~50-99. The setting is the young man's office at a company called Goober.* The play ends soon after the woman beats the man at the Hamlet's Soliloquy game, another product of my invention. The play is under revision but one thing that will stay until Google, Microsoft, etc. open their boxes, is that the Old Woman will identify "True thinking outside the box" as what she'd contribute to the company, and she'll explain why.

* Old Woman: I haven't been keeping up with the news. When did you merge with Uber? Young Man: We didn't merge with Uber. The B is for Face*B*ook and the ER is for the end of Twitter. Old Woman: Should be BS for FaceBook, and I'd love to see the end of Twitter.