stillfugue

When the blanket is heavy,

And I feel of little value,

And I add little value,

Forced to wear a tie

For some good reason,

But it makes no sense when

I never see customers,

And I never see anyone

Who seems to care about seeing me

(I miss that from my prior work –

People needed me every day,

So I thought, and I have no clue why

It is critical to my happiness

To feel as though I am needed –

I want people to think of me

When they want something done

And know that it will be done well);

 

Yet it is absolutely required

That I dress as a robotic clown;

And I try to survive hundreds of aggressive,

Mean and unconscious drivers

Through a thankfully-short commute,

Striving my best to be patient, tolerant, and kind,

And realizing that this behavior

Has me acting like a beaten dog;

 

And I spend the entire day

Enclosed by gray and black cubicle walls

With all sorts of noise pollution

And ugly smells coming from the employee kitchen;

And with all of the reports I sift through,

There are maybe three or four

Out of ten thousand records

That ever have any value,

And when they do have value,

The likelihood of them ever getting handled

By the justice system is maybe one in ten;

And the air conditioner does not work

Most of the days so it feels

Like a sweat shop;

And I know that the bank will never need

Any of my unused good character and skills

Because all of the people in all of the positions

Which require some level of solid thinking

Are taken by people who will likely retire

Not long before I do;

 

But I find myself dimly frightened

By the fact that my wife’s business

Has eaten much of our retirement savings,

And that her business is not a way

To get wealthy and it is likely that I will

Never retire even if I want to retire,

And I wonder if I will have the proper energy

to keep going;

And I think about the fact that I

Will not stick by any sort of

Everyday exercise program

Even though I know that this is the only way

For me to be healthy

Especially when I am older;

 

And I find that I try to go paperless and

Organize my environment in a series of

Electronic strategies but I have millions of

Sheets of paper anyhow;

And I have never been able

To stay on top of filing because I seem to be

Constitutionally incapable of organizing papers,

And organizing papers only causes heartache

So my desk stays in a combat-zone state of being;

And where I see other people

Who seem to be thrilled

With their minor successes, even the ones

That seem to have no relevance at all,

And I wish I could be thrilled with mine;

And I see other people

Who might be beaten down

By the monotonous quality of their jobs

But it does not seem to faze them in the least,

As they appear to be fully satisfied with the

Daily cycle of monotony,

And I wish I could be like that;

 

Where I earn more money here at this bank

In the Compliance Department

Than I could doing other things

Because I have built up a strong skill set,

So even if I feel doing other things would be

Beneficial to my spiritually,

I feel it would be a crime to leave

A good salary for one that is half that size,

Especially when the one that would be left

Is really not that much;

Where I see hundreds of job openings

On the East or West coasts

For which I qualify and which would

Challenge me to a high level

That pay five times what I earn now,

But I know I will never live in those places;

Where everything in this big building

That really is not that big seems to be moving

With the one goal of getting bigger

But where nothing to the good seems to be happening –

Yes there is a need for banking services,

But are all these people

Spinning in circles and acting as though

They make the world turn really necessary,

And really, do we need to put ourselves

In the position of relying on a bank

With all of these employees spinning in circles

On their PC’s to make our lives better;

 

And I wonder how I got here,

And why I cannot seem to do better

For people and why I cannot seem to find

Any value in what I do,

And if it is possible ever to do something

Where I do good things and can support

Whatever lifestyle I seem to be leading at this time.

 

I would like to change all of this

But I have rational fears.

If I change the externals,

Would it really help the depression?

Sometimes I believe that all of my problems

Are spiritual problems

And that all of them require spiritual solutions.

Should I work at whatever small community bank survives

For the next 50 years

If I am “lucky” to be here that long?