Bureaucalypse

Bureaucalypse

Study hard, they said, and so we did,
And it didn’t help at all.
Be positive, beguile and kid –
Yet we still went to the wall.
Keep looking for the chance, they say,
As if just saying makes it so –
Don’t let your dreams all slip away,
As if they hadn’t, long ago.
If they can land such good careers,
Then why, they like to ask, can’t we ?
As if a job like theirs appears
With unrelenting frequency.
For us, we get to spend our years neck-deep
In drudgery and stress,
Where days are long and lives are cheap,
And no-one ever tells us yes.

But surely there must be another side,
That’s free from the pounds and the pence ?
Where we end the day with a sense of pride,
Having made a difference…?
And so we shrink our lives to spit them out
On a single side of paper,
And foist them on whoever is casting about –
And watch them vanish to vapour.
And if we do get interviewed,
There’s a thousand others like us.
It’s a lottery, really, with odds so skewed,
But hey, don’t make a fuss…
Capitalism has use for you and I,
No matter how bent and scarred –
Work hard, work long, and don’t ask why
We have to work so long and hard.