We, Robot
A poem, of a sort
Awakened by alarm But with time enough to snooze A programmed reflex move Only once of course Schedules must be kept to Take the same shower Eat the same break of fast Catch the same bus.train.other The routine helps– Save time Less thinking Fast Think Why would you want to? That was a question– Do not ask Take the same desk Even though they are hot Arrive by nine Or on the dot Leaving prompt At five Count the minutes down ‘Til you make it out Alive Answer the email Written for you If you like Thank them for their query To which (Within 72 hours) You will garnish a Reply File the report Confirm you're doing good The numbers do not lie But you'd let them, If you Could Could Get another job Easy if you try A machine will write your résumé For another one to read Analyse– Summarise Automated Reply But you can get ahead Read all the advice Follow all the tips Unless they come in multiples Of five Hit the button To subscribe Six is popular This one I read has thirteen But it's just the latest quirk Of the zeitgeist machine Fill out the form Online Auto capitalize the letters Cross Ts dot Is Tick the box to say you’re human Not a robot At least this time Another day Another week Another month It's all the same Celebrate the little wins But document the blame Because you know things Should be better But that's never how it works Believe in your leaders Just to avoid the hurt Isn't that the right way? No questions Remember Remember You're one of the lucky ones They cannot take your job Too much experience Think of the knowledge that would be lost You are not A robot A repository Of repeatable Jobs Like that email you wrote yesterday Solving that long forgotten pain That you've now fed into the system Consumed by a hungry master brain And now it's churned out Again, again Again Again You think of all the things You've done All the lessons Learned The people who have shaped you To become part of The herd Efficient Productive Irreplaceably lean Even when Right sized All part of the same team But you can stand out Be the difference A unique selling point To crush the other fools Homogenized by outsourcing To the exact same Third party tools As you And I Aye Robots cannot replace People But people Can be turned Into robots And robots can be Upgraded Better For everyone Haven't you Heard?
Somehow, this week, I hit an unexpected flow. This, was the main outcome.
The secondary outcome was being reminded why I’ve been focusing my time on happy, fun fiction. The world is tough right now, and we all need a little reprieve.
Anyway, normal programming will resume shortly.
See you soon.
This is rad man, one of my fave things by you. It’s got that existential dread wrapped in a sales pitch that I love 😅
Sometimes I wonder if I was right to leave my job a year ago. And then I read something like this and my regrets float away.