Micro Manager - Poem
What for?
Your shift
ended at 5
but you’re still here at 9.
What are you searching for, in the sediment
of each emptied glass? Up you get…
“Stand here. Face the customer.
Have you spoken to table 22?
Have you? HAVE YOU?
Push drinks, push dessert,
push yourself off a cliff,
oh, and smile. Make sure you keep on smiling
while I slice your hours.
NOBODY FUCKING MOVE.
There’s a grain of rice on the floor and why
do you keep talking and laughing
with your colleagues while
there’s clearly work to do?
You could be cleaning.
Oh lord why aren’t they cleaning?
Print the bill for 33, I won’t,
because I am a manager, and
I can get you to do it.”
My therapist said
sometimes the belittled and powerless,
the disrespected and nigh invisible,
find identity in a title,
within the same four walls. Well
someone has written a poem about you.
Isn’t that something?
I hope that you might find
some solace in a sunny day, without
the urge to drink it away,
until your next shift.


I feel seen 🤝
Push drinks push dessert hit close to home 😔