jonberger

What I think is a good idea
is if I build something
that everybody needs.

I think that should definitely
be a plan
to consider
if I come up
with a necessary thing
that simply everyone wants to buy.

This seems like a system that cannot lose.

All I need is the thing that the world needs
evidence that the world needs it
proof of concept from the world
the correct price point
and investment capital.

Maybe the way to make it, too.

But the idea about the idea…
I think I’m off to a good start.

I’ve been peeping around
looking to see if there’s anywhere
I could find a place
where my qualifications could find a use
if anyone could find a use for me.

It would be good to be useful.
It has been over thirty hours
and I would like to be useful again.
Brother, please,
can you spare a need?

Just need me for something.
That’s all I ask
all I need.
Just a little something
please.

My room-mate says, "At last I can turn the advice
you have provided me
on its ear:
‘Look for the work
that you want to do.’"
Then he goes out,
presumably to do
the sort of work he wants to do.
I should ask at some point.

But what do I want to do?
I’d love to write
but who would pay
for this sort of self-indulgent claptrap?
I would pay me for it
but not another!
And I’m much too cheap
to pay me a living wage, anyway.

So maybe just talk faster
and assume people are already paying for it?
That could work.
Just sneak the charge in already.
Maybe that’s how to make the millions.
But would anyone buy it?

Time will tell.

Perhaps you should get a job listening to music you love,
just grooving to tunes
and being asked if you like them.

You could also expand your responsibilities
to reading books and comics
and being asked if you like them.
You don’t have to write extensive essays
about why you like or dislike them.
This is not a critical assignment
that is being brought before you
just a gut check.
Maybe electrodes are set across you
and your reactions are tested.

Movies and plays too!
And what about foods?
You could consume whatever substances you would like
and see if you actually like them
so we could see if others like you
could like them, too.

Except
what if nobody is like you?

Haven’t you always prided yourself
on your nonconformity?
Perhaps you are too unique
for this position.
If only you were more common.

Then we could find use for you.

This is a perfect time to look inward;
take a good hard view
as to how you are
and make an investment in incessant improvement.
Just make everything better.

This is the time to do it:
The shoes.
Gotta go.
Clean the smudges off your nose.
Get rid of errant hairs.

Mercilessly review you
and decide why you were judged lacking.
Ensure that is never deemed so again.
Make it that everyone finds you
more than enough
in the future.

Wash the dishes
spic ‘n’ span
never dirty a dish again.
Reconsider eating.
Keep calories to a minimum.
Food may be at a premium now.

You’ve got the time.
Careful that everything passes muster.
Make it so.

You wake on the first day
of your new life.

It is the same time
you always wake up
to the same sunlight
it has ever been
the same grey.

You feel no freer
no less bound
by the chains
of the Man
then you were the day before
to do what you wish
however you may want.

You have your own destiny to pursue now,
though,
and naturally
you think,
the best destiny
is to pursue more sleep.

I will not have an opportunity to apologize to the QA guys
who were assessing my Customer Service cases
giving me lousy scores and putting my job at risk
this last year and a half.
I’ve been judging them for being so one-dimensional
in their thinking
and not often understanding the breadth of my logic.

Now that I’ve been fired
I will never have the chance to let them know
that I’m sorry for not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

I’ll never have the opportunity to speak to them again
so I won’t be able to make up
my prejudicial thinking to those guys
who kept my employment in danger
and left me anxious for half my tenure
at the company I just left.

This bothers me
but not enough
to seek a solution
to the problem at hand.

Really, this couldn’t have come at a better season.
The dead of winter is the perfect time
for me to be holed up at home
with little to do.
I can focus incessantly on house projects
while concerning myself with how to save money.
I can look through the things in my apartment
seeing what I can burn
what I can sell
and what I cannibalize.
This will work out well, I am certain.

My phone has been dying,
so I will have less excuse to go out and do things
being away from my charger
with income being so delightfully tight right now.

Creativity will no doubt go through the roof
as anxiety creeps up
up up up up up
and upward again.

Finally, desperate exercises in positivity
will help me practice my imagination.
I will end this season of dread
far stronger than I entered it
and with a very tinder-tinged home,
I’m sure.

Being smarter than I’m supposed to be
got me kicked out of a job at a college
where I was escorted out
because I was pretty damned stupid.

I snuck into an old office
after I had changed departments
to make copies of a zine.
When the guard asked if I was supposed to be there,
I grinned and said,
“I’ve got the key, right?”

He realized that wasn’t an answer
and checked up on me.
I was confronted at my new desk on Monday morning
and a different security guard watched me clear out my desk
and exit the building.
That was the first time that happened to me
but I soon got used to it.

I did stop publishing zines at work, though,
when businesses stopped having big copy machines everywhere.

In one prior company
my position had partially been
to root out scams
that customers were pulling,
so when they fired me
(I felt) unjustly,
I was in an excellent position
to consider scams against them.

The details are irrelevant
but run something like this:
buy lots of tickets for their multiple products
across different lines of business,
then collect among them the common winning elements
which they had not created a rule
that you could not mix and match across.
Since nobody knew that Product X
and Product C were sold by the same body
no one else knew to combine them to get a winning bingo
except a couple of notable folks.

I was a notable folks
and I would win prizes on a regular basis
for a reasonable amount of time
while I was unfairly unemployed
and even afterward into my next job.

It made me feel better about myself
when I felt like I’d been taken advantage of.
It felt like things were being evened out.

If but I had such hidden knowledge
in my current situation.