One of the greatest (and sometimes most annoying) things about our office, is that it is located in the uttermost busy parts of town. There is always something funny, disturbing or weird happening – and we can often be seen standing at the windows, gazing at the streetlife, during lunch. It’s quite entertaining.

The past couple of weeks we have seen a lot of big crowds of (mostly) women parading by, dressed in identical oversized low quality t-shirts. Daycare workers, kindergarten teachers and nurses are on strike, fighting for higher wages.

I actually support the cause, but being a single parent myself I must admit that it is hella annoying to be struck by this strike (pun intended). I’m lucky to have really flexible employers though, which makes me able to avoid using my saved vacation and off-time. Nevertheless – it is still really hard and annoying.

There is only one extenuating circumstance that keeps me from getting angry about it all – the kindergarten teachers noble fight to keep the color Magenta a public belonging!

Last year the most ridiculous and absurd (to my knowledge) patent rights disputes went down. Deutsche Telekom AG, the mother company of T-mobile, (allegedly) attempted to register the color magenta (one of the big 4) at the European brand office Oami, as belonging to them. This would effectively block other companies from using this primary printing colour for their own brands.

When I first heard of this I thought it was a joke, because of it’s level of absurdity – but it wasn’t a joke. T-Mobile started legal fights versus a series of Dutch brands such as Slam FM, Compello and 100% NL – brands with magenta in their logo. Deusche Telekom also sent a letter to Engadget requesting the prompt discontinuation of the use of the color magenta on Engadget Mobile. Engadget responded by publishing the actual letter (here).

In The Netherlands, a social movement was born to protect the free use of the magenta colour in communication materials – and also an online petition to reclaim magenta were set up.

I don’t know how it all ended – the sight of the magenta-equipped kindergarten teachers marching just reminded me of this.
The people on strike wearing all magenta is probably totally ignorant of the magenta dispute, but I REALLY like to think that they did it on purpose. They sure picked the most perfect and STRIKING color anyway:).

PS: Writing this, I came up with a really great idea: If I registered all shades of blood red as belongings to me, I could rule the world! Be warned!!!