Office Discipline

2024 Mar 04


Office Discipline
Another poem about work anxiety.

office discipline,
I screwed up again,
how'd I draw your discontent,
how now am I a simpleton?

a sunny smile on your face,
acidic emails on my case,
a slighted message gives me chase,
an anxious choking heart pace

blind-carbon-copies,
passive aggression,
their indoctrinated behaviors
still experience regression

sometimes I slip up a little
meeting all your demands,
stern and condescending messages
carry me your reprimands,
as if I can't learn from mistakes
without your guiding hands

I know I'm still the new guy,
I'm giving it my best try,
but I'm hard-pressed to go on
when you treat me like a moron

your disjointed documentation
is in eleven different places,
but when I ask for help finding things
there's disappointment on your faces

you get up in arms when I'm delayed
for barely more than sixty seconds,
but you still hire engineers
who don't know present from past tense

you question my competence
despite saying I'm skilled,
destroying the confidence
I was trying to build

you try to break me on purpose,
as some crucible of strength,
you try to test my grit and prove
that I belong among your ranks

I don't even want to be here,
have you even done the sums?
I'm scraping by on what you give me
or I'd be out on my cold bum.

your measurement of human value
clearly needs to be adjusted,
people like you are the reason
managers are not to be trusted

you've no concern for anything
but numbers bouncing on your screen,
you turn your back to many things
and never quite say what you mean

a random instant messsage
"can you come to my office?"
could be anything from boundless praise
to a warning to be cautious

you've got no time for training tasks,
but you find fault with all my work,
you want success without support,
perhaps you're just all jerks!

you love using words like "team"
to rally workers' spirits,
but when you turn your back on me
I don't want to fucking hear it



🐾