Poet's Corner
A THOROUGHLY MODERN OFFICE
10-12-2007
Aah, Christmas. The time of year when you get together with that colleague you've always fancied in the stationery cupboard and tell the boss what you really think of him. Chance would be a fine thing, muses Brendan Hawthorne.
This office is a laundro-mat of politics
Where dirt is washed into the well-meaning
Where people are made to feel guilty of thinking
or, dare I say,
expressing an opinion or even using initiative
It’s a place where hot desks flatten laughter lines
and press individuality into straight-line seams
You can watch the intrigue tumble
in the drying drum of managerial propaganda
relentlessly rolling
over and over
and over again
The imperious ones sit and observe all
rank and file disobedience
from the lofty shelf of promotion
and crush humour and camaraderie
beneath the weight of uncertainty
There’s one to watch and one to glare
and neither cares
how they pay off another wedge
of self-induced debt
as long as their own petty ego is left alone
to carve up another colleague before breakfast
and serve them neatly gutted and filleted
fresh from the abattoir department of human resources
Prepared and tenderised on the block
of policy and guidance
Made ready for easy consumption
by the monitoring pen and clipboard
before being placed on an
all’s –fair-in-trade-and-industry platter
neatly trimmed and garnished before being
positioned next to the deep fried finger foods
so prevalent in this hall-of-mirrors environment
Where everything gets distorted and twisted
on those back patting, ‘you look good in this-
we have no ideas of our own so
let’s pick over your brains
and call it a training day’
And then there’s the phone calls
The checking up on who’s called whom
The barbed comments
The paid pittance
The statistics
The analysis
The report
Justify where you’ve been
Justify what you’ve done
Justify your existence
Deliberate!
Delegate!
Evaluate!
There’s no time to celebrate
Blow a party hooter
Or wear a cracker crown
Oh, and by the way,
don't forget to close the door on the way out
Copyright Brendan Hawthorne 2007
