20150816 (nightmare)

Reading that article about Amazon*

I brought it on myself 

You can’t ask articles to be labelled

Reading this can be 

Dangerous to your health

If you’ve read any of my stuff

You know I periodically complain

Of management nightmares

I can’t think of anybody I know

Who doesn’t have them whether

They’ll admit it or not

The dream puts you back into

Your annual review God Himself

Doesn’t wait that long

You sin boom you’re guilty

No jury deliberating whether 

You did it or not you may

Have to wait for the sentencing

Sometimes you’re forgiven

Or you drag it along like a boulder

Hitched to your butt spoiling

Everything from the smile

You give your kids to the

Kiss you give your wife

But the corporation can ruin 

Everything you’ve done

Everything you’ve built

Everything you’ve saved

Everything you’ve planned

You think stupid wage slave

You’ll never be free as long 

As somebody else decides

If you’ve met those stupid goals

These weren’t my goals

You never asked me about my goals

These are your goddamned goals

Take this job and shove it

But you bite your tongue

Yessir nossir your way through

The damn thing if they 

Were going to shitcan your ass

They’d have done it already

What kind of prick does it take

To conduct this kind of thing

What happens to the ones

Who break down and cry

Do they give you a pink slip

Printed on a kleenex so you

Can mop your sorry nose 

On the way out that’s when 

You’re ready to seize the tools

Of production and kick their ass

Down the road it’ll never happen

You desperately need this to pay

For your house your car

Your kids’ schooling so

Someday they won’t have to

Toady to some piece of shit 

In a three-piece suit 

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

*Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace, Jodi Kantor and Davis Streitfield, NYTimes, August 15, 2015, Business
Day