Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Office dweller

I am not made for the office. The office breaks me. Breaks me slowly, but breaks me the same. It shows, perhaps not to the outside world, but to me. Things that used to astonish and grate at integrity become part of the accepted undertone of the office . Things I swore I'd always do, no matter what the circumstance, well. Immune to weather, hands smooth - not calloused, conversations removed from the converser, eyes glazed with computer, limbs unused and wasting, parceled work and play, sunshineless cells, world revolving around a world.


Really, I cannot accept that I am the only one who feels this way. I don't think man is made for the office. Man wants to create, to use hands, to connect with the land, to be part of something larger. And yet so many of us are caught in this fabricated world that is office life. I don't want to find myself old and softened by office living. But what to do?

"I'm off to the subway
I must not be late.
Going to work in tall buildings.

Now when I retire
and my life is my own
I made all the payments
it's time to go home
and wonder what happened
betwixt and between
when I went to work in tall buildings"


-Tall Buildings, John Hartford

5 comments:

chelsea mckell said...

You should totally submit this post to NBC. They could have a character on The Office recite this as a monologue.

Adriana said...

I knew it was my time to leave cubicle life when i couldn't keep a plant alive on my desk. It's a wasteland. Good luck my friend.

Becky said...

It's true. What is to be done?

M. said...

bah. that's how I feel, and desperately trying to get out!

Melinda said...

John Hartford, as in "Steam Powered Aereoplane" John Hartford?
Just tonight a friend called me, weary of doing his econ homework, and I was exhausted from long hours of work, and just as we were about to hang up, he pointed out how strange it is that we really don't know all that much about what each other spends hours and hours doing all day. Work. hmpf.