Dulce et Decorum est Pro Organisatione Suae Carrierae Delere

Cubicles crammed, through a fog of screens,
Colleagues hunched and weary, soul-dead dreams;
Dragging on deadlines, drifting toward doom,
Reaching for tasks that in the cloud loom.

“Email! Email!” Quick, Slack bells ringing,
Juggling tabs, while your phone keeps pinging;
Just in time, someone’s career takes a fall;
He could not keep up, could not give his all.

In every inbox, haunting every thread,
The face of a colleague, emotionally dead.
If you could hear, through the buzz and hum,
The muted cries, the career undone;

His weary eyes, burning and hollow,
His voice, a whisper, tone filled with sorrow.
His sacrifices for projects unmet,
His life’s ambitions, lost, drowned in regret;

You would not chant, with so much zest,
To youngsters eager, doing their best,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro organisatione suae carrierae delere.

(With all due respect to Wilfred Owen)