THE OUTLANDISH OFFICE
Your co-worker splashes coffee into the waste can.
Sun scorches through enormous windows,
and the desk surface gets warm and sticky.
Spreadsheets talk and dance in the afternoon,
but do not calculate what you want.
Lettuce from lunch crowds the desk.
A co-worker shakes her own vinaigrette
and frowns. Cleanliness is everything.
Messy desks are a sign of not wanting to work.
Your screen display goes sideways.
What key did you unconsciously press
to get here? Technology is inept, unblinking.
Devices quiver with unsavory laughter.
Translucent database tables slice one another,
dreaming of new names and numbers
that are color-coded in shades of disaster.
How much data will appear upside down?
Think of night, when you go home baffled,
caught in a network of plans never carried out.
Sleep takes curtains and darkness after supper.
Dreams of vast spreadsheet mistakes, violent
calculations, colors pouring out of the grid.
Office chairs collapse in blame and accusations.
They don’t stop taunting you before it’s time
to get up, have coffee and do it all again.