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Overview
If you are missing your work spouse during the lockdown state of "working from home" then we've got some poetry for you.
With the same brilliant wit and biting realism that made Love Poems for Married People, Love Poems for People with Children, and Love Poems for Anxious People such hits, John Kenney is back with a brand new collection that tackles the hilarity of life in the office. From waiting in line for the printer and revising spreadsheet after spreadsheet, to lukewarm coffee, office politics, and the daily patterns of your most annoying—and lovable—coworkers, Kenney masterfully captures the warmth and humor of working the "9 to 5" in today's modern era.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780593190708 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2020 |
| Pages: | 112 |
| Sales rank: | 516,473 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.70(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
A Q&A with the author
Q: Your last collection, Love Poems for Anxious
People, came out at almost the exact same time the coronavirus hit the United States. Now you have Love Poems for the Office and many offices are either
closed or at least radically changed. Should you stop writing books?
A: That's a great question, and you are not the first person to suggest that (my publisher, friends, readers, my parents).
Q: What will your next untimely book title be?
A: Love Poems for the Apocalypse.
Q: I read your previous collection, Love Poems
for Anxious People.
A: Thank you.
Q: I'm joking. I didn't.
A: Oh.
Q: Why offices?
A: The idea was my editor's. My initial idea, Love Poems for Middle-Aged Poets Who Wish They Had Gone
into Finance Instead of Poetry Because Now They
Have Almost No Money in the Bank and Are Royally Screwed was rejected by my publisher.
Q: Have you ever worked in an office?
A: No, but I've certainly applied many times. As yet, I've not heard back.
Q: What you've done in this book is take the mundane world of the office and turn that world into mundane poems.
A: I think that's exactly right.
Q: You have been called the greatest poet of your generation. What's that like?
A: I have? I hadn't heard that.
Q: Wait. Sorry. That was Mary Oliver who was called the greatest poet of her generation. No one has called you anything except for some very bad names on Goodreads. Want to hear some of them?
A: I'll pass.
Hold the elevator?
If I am honest
I did see you
holding those two coffees
a file wedged under one arm.
Jill, right?
So let me explain what happened there, Jill.
I was kind of in a rush
to get back to my desk, I mean.
Not to a meeting or anything.
Just to eat my lunch
and simply space out
and watch YouTube.
So I had been standing
in that elevator
a good seven seconds
which can feel like a long time in an elevator.
And I'd pressed the close door button
a few times
(maybe ten?)
when I saw you shuffling toward the elevator
smiling
eyes wide
as if to say
Hold the door?
Please don't take this
as a criticism
but you are a slow walker, Jill.
Also the doors had started to close
in large part because I
was pressing the close door button
but making it look like I
was pressing the open door button
while making a face like
How do these crazy buttons work?!!
This is so complicated!
Get the next elevator, Jill.
Zoom calls in the time of coronavirus (part 1)
Mary is sitting on her Peloton
pedaling and talking.
Ben is in his car
waiting to go into a car wash.
Terry is in his daughter's room
surrounded by pink stuffed animals.
Greg is taking a shower
which makes it hard to hear him.
No one cares.
It's Zoom.
Zoom is from the Greek word for
no one gives a fuck anymore.
Shakespeare never used the word "ping" and neither should you
When you say
ping me
I want to punch you.
It's true.
Bio break, too.
It makes me cringe.
And if I am being honest
I don't care about your ducks or the row they're in.
I don't know what net-net means
unless it's being said by an excited tennis announcer.
Come to think of it
let's not circle back
or drill down
or take a deep dive
or take it offline
or level the playing field
or create action items
and honestly I don't care
if this won't scale
and may I add that
going forward
I would like to park this project.
And this job.
I quit.
Now.
Sorry.
I have a hard stop.
A review of the office holiday party (from the
police report)
The food ran out.
That was the problem.
The booze didn't, though.
That was also part of the problem.
Kissing people was another part of the problem.
In all there were a lot of parts to the overall problem.
Another significant problem was that
I was dancing
alone
(according to eyewitnesses)
and spinning
and singing a song I had made up
Take your pants off!
C'mon, everybody, take your pants off!
And then, according to depositions
I performed a spinning move of such force
that I somehow flung myself
off the dance floor
and into a table
of several women from accounting
who were chatting with the CFO
breaking the table
and then throwing up on myself
and the CFO.
I think that was the main problem.
Still.
Prior to that it was one of the better holiday parties.
Whose meeting is this?
After we had all filed in
found a seat
made some small talk
someone said
I'm sorry but whose meeting is this?
Someone asked if it was Cindy's meeting.
But Cindy said she thought it was Jagdish's meeting.
Jagdish seemed confused and said it was Alan's.
Alan wasn't there so it probably wasn't his meeting.
Gary asked if it could have been a mistake
and then laughed too loud
and got embarrassed and thought about crying but didn't.
Jagdish said it couldn't be a mistake, that it was on his calendar.
Cindy seemed super annoyed and said
if it was on your calendar to jump off the building would you do it, Jagdish?
It got quiet after that
during which everyone wondered
what the point of this meeting was
what the point of any meeting was for that matter
wondered where time went
and why they hadn't done more with their lives.
And as they filed silently out of the room
to allow another meeting in
no one had any idea
how they would account for this
on their time sheet.
Why are you tanned?
At the morning staff meeting someone asked me how I was feeling.
I said great.
So you're better, they asked.
Which is when I remembered that I had called in sick the day before.
Definitely better, I said. Probably a twenty-four-hour bug.
Was it a tanning bug? someone else asked. Because you look tan.
Oh . . . this, I said. Yeah. I had a fever. So it could be that.
Fevers make you tanned?
I said they could, in rare instances.
But someone Googled that quickly and said that wasn't a thing.
You know what can make you tan is the sun, someone suggested.
On a golf course, someone else added.
I agreed that that was possible.
But you were sick, they said.
I was. I was sick. So I wasn't outside and certainly not on a golf course.
Were you outside on a golf course? they asked.
You can be sick in so many places, I said, though I wasn't sure what I meant.
So I added, You know how you can work from home? Well I have heard that you can be sick on a golf course.
Were you sick on the golf course? they asked.
I was nauseated on the front side, yes. Mostly because of my putting.
I felt much better on the back nine.
Here comes Milo
I quickly pick up the phone
even though it hasn't rung
because Milo is coming.
Uh-huh . . . okay . . . I understand
I say to no one.
Most people would wave
leave
understand.
Not Milo.
Milo leans against the high riser
of my cubicle
biting a nail
smelling it
a man with time on his hands.
He is at work after all.
I point to the phone
hand over the mouthpiece.
What's up, Milo? On a call.
Milo examines all of his fingernails
and I wonder if he has even heard me.
Then he chuckles and says
My weekend was crazy sick.
(It's Wednesday.)
That's great, I say. It's just . . . I have this call.
He moves some files off the chair next to my desk
and then sniffs my half-eaten sandwich.
Who's the call with? Milo asks.
Umm . . . my oncologist, I say.
Cool. I'll wait.
Team building
It had been a long day
of team-building exercises
and I sort of thought
we were on the same page
as to how ridiculous it was.
It turns out we were
not on the same page.
Which may be why
I did not
catch you
during the trust fall.
I thought it would be funny.
And it was.
For me.
Briefly.
I never thought
you would land
so hard.
Or that your head
would make that sound.
Or need two stitches.
Just as I never thought
you would trust me
as I had once trusted you
to give me a a raise.
Trust is a funny thing.
Welcome to the group
I am sure
it will be fine
that we are now
working
in the same group
even though
we hooked up
a while back
after an office party
and then went out
a couple of times
but ended badly
and then
hooked up again
when you said
you were leaving
the company
but ended up staying
and we ended badly
again.
Not to mention
I have heard
you are dating someone
from finance now.
How nice.
Also.
That idea
you presented today?
I hated it.
What I would do differently if you weren't my boss
I wouldn't laugh
the next time you tell that joke
about the two nuns
because it's not funny
or even physically possible.
I would just stare at you
as if to say
you're a dickhead.
And then I might say
out loud
You're a dickhead.
And when you came by my cubicle
to ask if I had gotten to that report
even though you could see
that I was eating an egg salad sandwich
only to say
I guess it will have to wait until after your lunch
and make a face
and say how much you hate egg salad
I might say something like
That's funny because I hate your face.
I would say that if you weren't my boss
and I didn't have a mortgage.
And then I might add that your kids are weird-looking.
Because they are.
Who keeps stealing my yogurt?
The first noble truth of Buddhism
is that life is suffering.
And that suffering has a cause.
It's called craving or attachment.
(I should mention here that I am not Buddhist.
I read all that stuff on a Snapple cap once.)
My point is I am suffering
as I was very attached to
my 3 p.m. snack.
You all know this.
And yet even though I have
clearly marked my snacks
(Elaine's snack . . . DO NOT TOUCH!)
you take them.
I think it was you, Greg.
Or possibly Tracy.
I will find out.
That was a Chobani yogurt
you stole
you sons of bitches.
I will go through your trash.
I will find the empty container
which I will then recycle (per company policy).
And then I will exact revenge.
Suffering, indeed.
Coming soon to a cubicle near you.
Open seating
I love the new open seating plan.
I really do.
I love having no idea
where I am going to sit each day.
Or where others are.
The democratic nature of it
that anyone
can sit
anywhere
at any time.
How you can't keep a photo
or a book
or anything for that matter
at your work space
or it is taken away that evening
by the cleaning crew.
The thing is though
I have been sitting
in this seat for, like,
two weeks now.
And I'm not sure why I'm yelling.
But seriously
get the hell out of my seat.
Mythirdemailtotechsupportregardingmyfreakingstickyspacebar
Notsureifyoureceivedmypreviousemails.
Ihaveastickyspacebarandit'smakingmyworkverydifficult.
Isthereanywayyoucouldgetbacktome?
I'matextension6679.
Oremail.
Createaworkorder.
Somesignthatyouareawareoftheproblem.
Becauseitisaproblem.
ClientsarewonderingwhatthehellIam
sayinginmyemails.
Decipheringthemlikeit'ssomekindof
BletchleyParkduringWorldWarIIscenario.
JustanoteontheBletchleyParkthing.
TheyactuallycrackedtheEnigmaCode.
AllI'mlookingforisaloaner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for heating up fish leftovers in the break room microwave again
I am
assuming
it's fish.
Though it certainly
could be
something else.
A dead man's foot
for example
if the smell
is any indication.
Break room's all yours.
You will be missed
This place will not be the same
without you, Wayne.
You're the man.
Do you know that?
I certainly didn't know that.
I just learned that today
from some of the people here
at this very small going-away party
in your office
which I wandered into
after leaving a meeting early.
Layoffs are the worst.
I just wanted to say
good luck
finding a new job
especially in this economy.
And also to introduce myself.
And ask if it would be okay
if I took your chair
and that awesome retro joke photo.
Which it turns out
is not a retro joke photo
but your family.
My bad.
Okay to take the chair?
Zoom calls in the time of coronavirus (part 2)
Why yes
that was my five-year-old son
running back and forth
behind me
nude
shouting
Anus! Anus! Anus!
while the dog barked
and my husband yelled
and I leaned away from the computer camera
so no one would hear me shout
Greg! For Chrissakes, can you get the fucking kids out of here?!
and then smoothly sat back up
only to see the rather stunned faces
of my colleagues
and hear my boss
remind everyone
to mute themselves.
We're in cubicles, Betsy, which means I can hear your phone conversations
You have my sympathy
Betsy
on the strife
in your home life.
But I do not think
that I
or the nine other people
who make up digital marketing
should hear you say
I'm sick of you getting drunk
and peeing in the bed, Alan.
And Alan's response
which you repeated aloud
Oh I'm the one who drives you to drink
was neither kind nor fair.
Though I cannot speak to your
homelife and your ability
to make someone want to drink heavily.
Though I do think Alan may have a point.
. . .
I am sorry
you are not feeling well
Bets.
But here's a thought.
Maybe make that call from home
or the bathroom
or another country.
Because everyone can hear
you tell your (hopefully?) doctor
that you have a burning sensation
when you urinate
which I will grant you
is no fun.
. . .
Sorry
what exactly do you mean
when you say
you've found a good spot
in the woods
to bury the body?
Cat.
Okay then.
Sorry for listening in.
Wait.
Your cat's not dead.
A word of advice to the interns
Please take this in the spirit
with which it is given but
I got sooo hammered last night
might not be something
you want to share
in the elevator.
It may surprise you to learn
that many of us could already sense that
from both your pallor
and the stale smell of
off-gassing booze emanating from your body.
Also, congratulations on
hooking up last night with
a totally hot guy.
All of us hope you're both
very happy in the years to come