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.