BUREAUCRATS IN LOVE

(or, Pop go the weasel words)


(I wrote these verses in 2006 as a skit on the hieratic version of English favoured by government departments of every type and level in Australia and no doubt everywhere else in the Anglophone world. Nothing much has changed since then.  They were read at a literary festival to an appreciative audience but have since languished in a desk drawer where some readers may believe they should have stayed. JP.)

We met on the escalator,

that’s where our liaison began:

I’d just finished drafting outcomes

for the Joint Strategic Plan.

He was clad in the corporate dress code,

he sported a power tie;

I knew he was aspirational

by the hungry look in his eye,

but he smiled like a people person,

and as the stairs were rising

he whispered ‘Do you have any needs

I could help with actualizing?’

It sounded like sexual harassment

but I thought it might mean advancement,

a holistic opportunity

for assertive career enhancement,

so I let him take the leadership role

to optimize our relations:

we made a date for the following night,

then returned to our workstations.

Yes, that was how it began:

our nexus inflamed by passion

we frequently interacted at work

in an inappropriate fashion.

At last came the paradigm shift

(promoted, of course, by my mother):

we could integrate our resources,

I could be his significant other,

so I said to him, "Look, you’ve impacted

in quality ways on my life;

let’s maximize our potential

recycled as husband and wife".

Then my game plan deconstructed.

He responded, "That’s a decision

I’m not empowered to facilitate,

not in terms of my vision –

it’s not what I’d call best practice.

See it from where I sit;

it’s hard to put marital structures in place

if you’re not ramped up to commit.

Our relationship started on steroids

but now it’s on respirators.

In short, my dear, you’ve ceased to meet

key performance indicators.

My true love is customer service.

They warned me at business school

that sex in a workplace context

could downsize my management tool.

You’ve never been my core business,

just a flexible bit on the side.

Regrettably, this is the juncture

where our destinies divide".

I said to him, "I’m in agreeance",

for just at that moment in time

I could see the bastard for what he was –

an iconic parcel of slime.

I took my revenge in the office,

I did it in one fowl swoop,

I refused to massage his figures

and left him out of the loop.

I thought he was focused on excellence

but now he’s gone to the bad:

I’d just call that a negative outcome

if it wasn’t so fucking sad.  

James Plumridge