Ergonomics of Existence
My chair is rated for eight hours of sitting,
optimal lumbar support, adjustable armrests,
as if comfort could compensate
for the slow calcification of dreams.
I've organised my inbox into folders:
Urgent, Important, Someday, Never.
Someday is where ambition goes to die
in increments too small to mourn.
The metrics are always watching:
response time, productivity score,
the gamification of my worth
reduced to numbers on a dashboard.
My coworker brings her lunch in containers.
Sunday's labor portioned into Tuesday's sustenance.
We are all preparing for a future
that looks exactly like today.
The motivational poster says
"You don't have to be great to start,
but you have to start to be great."
I've been starting for thirty-five years.
In meetings, we discuss synergy,
leverage, bandwidth, moving the needle.
These words mean nothing and everything,
a liturgy for the Department of staying employed.
I dream in spreadsheets now.
Columns of tasks that multiply like cells,
each one dividing into subtasks,
an infinite regression of doing.
The retirement calculator says
I can stop working at sixty
if the market cooperates,
if I don't get sick,
if the world doesn't end first.
But here's what they don't tell you
about trading time for money:
you can always make more money.
Time, once sold, is gone forever.
I close my laptop at 6.45pm
One hour fifteen minutes of unpaid overtime,
a tithe to the god of looking busy,
of being seen as dedicated.
Outside, the sun is setting
on a day I barely noticed.
Somewhere, people are living lives
that don't fit into outlook calendars.
Tomorrow I'll come back.
Log in, stand up, sync up, circle back.
The chair will remember the shape of my surrender.
The screen will glow its welcome.
And I will perform productivity
like a trained animal who's forgotten
there was ever any other way
to justify taking up space on earth.
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