Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of sharing the stage of Berlin Spoken Word with poet, musician, lyricist and multi-hyphenated artist Cedric Till.
We collaborated on a piece on the week’s theme of Entropy, and shared real life stories from our experience in corporate jobs, as a small-scale representation of the entropy in the Universe outside.
[Verse 1 – Eva]
Too many poets trapped in corporate jobs
Well, at least one –and that’s one too many
Nearing burnout, blue-light fueled malady
And I don’t have a dream job, so I’m accused of lacking drive
Sorry if I don’t dream of imprisonment nine-to-five
[Verse 2 – Cedric]
So you lied to get a job, you’re a regular politician
All the promises you made, dashed by a statistician
You know the mission, look busy, smile plenty
Code switch, and never question company bullshit
[Verse 3 – Eva]
One wrong turn, and you’re in Human Resources
So much for art and always quoting my sources
All my other talents won’t keep me out of poverty
So what pays rent? Payslips or painting and poetry?
Three months of digging burying grounds:
Fired one for embezzlement,
One for watching porn during work time,
One simply couldn’t be found
Had to convince a manager:
Firing an employee that’s being treated for cancer
Simply is not the answer!
Helped a caregiver sign up for financial aids
Cried with a colleague, when MS stole her trade
[Verse 4 – Cedric]
All the dullest firings are at 9 am
You’ll stare down the barrels of people you’ve never met
Notice the accounts are closed before you can settle them
You’ll see the keyfob deactivate before the bullet left
[Verse 5 – Eva]
I’ve been fired before, I know what I’m talking about
nobody knows you when you’re down and out
The times I asked my colleagues out for lunch
Hoping they’d get the hunch, “it’s time to lawyer up”
[Verse 6 – Cedric ]
This is a microcosm of the greater world outside
The same greed, cowardice, duplicity and pride
The chancellor says “The welfare state’s no longer affordable”
The CEO says “Pink slips are coming for all of you”
Cause they get more than you get, so you get the royal jelly
Of all of the euphemisms ever – What? – Nougat.
They take the credit for your work, and then delete it
Screenshot and copy everything, you may need it
They make you sign an NDA for free to keep their secrets
Fuck a training on data security when they will breach it
[Verse 7 – Eva]
Corporations do crime full-time
Know they ain’t in the right so they use a pantomime
In a suit for the lawsuits, frame you as a slob
Till one day you believe it and come to work sobbing
Lord knows the times I cried in front of a PDF
Every minute of rest is company time theft
This is way beyond chronic stress
I ask myself: is anything sacred left?
I’ve seen it with Covid, remote work, the war
The show must go on, people are left alone
Called disposable, they micro-dose to hyper-function
In a system that thrives on their destruction
Success chainsmokes, does coke, and revokes
Your right to be healthy without being broke
I’ve seen more addiction and loneliness spikes
Than workers uniting and going on strike
CEOs pay for retreats at martial arts academies
Take cold plunges, agonize their anatomies
Prepackaged joy’s more in their capacity
After all, they love a good sales strategy
[Verse 8 – Cedric]
See through the revolving Glassdoor,
As HR asks the staff to stop adding bad reviews
Turns out the firings mentioned earlier
Are more akin to the Australian army shooting at emus
Please look in the mirror, the stakeholders are vampires
Every merger’s a pyre, and hypergrowth’s a damn lie
Graphs are drawn and quartered, figures are mangled
The chain of command emits the odor of estrangement
From reality, and it smells like the same shit
You’ve seen in the leaks of the Panama papers
[Verse 9 – Eva]
In a “sharing economy”
We rent the right to memories,
movement, and property
If I wanna reduce the harm
Of “benevolent” technocracies
All I can do is do my job improperly.
I’m hoping my privilege can trigger landslides
I’d say to my ancestors: “Nonna, I’ve arrived
I don’t know if it was worth your sacrifice
But I’m trying to avenge that 12-years-old child
Who only wanted to study and write
Instead of spinning looms of wire
For gas masks worn in open fire
I promise, I’ll be wise. I’ll follow your advice.
We keep fighting the good fight
From the inside”.
[Verse 10 – Cedric]
Too many poets are trapped in glass offices
Praying for wrecking balls and molotovs, to call it quits
Means putting your head in the sling, along with all of them
The James Franco meme “First time?”, we shake our noggin
And hope our added stress weight will snap us free
To all the artists that broke through, avenge us
Please.
Eva Casini 