Assorted Zingers: Poems and Cartoons to Take a Bite

A
Assorted Zingers
Poems and cartoons to take a bite out of work
By David Zinger with John Junson
I
Acclaim for Assorted Zingers
David Zinger and John Junson’s new book, “Assorted
Zingers” is a new and innovative portal into the way we
think about our work and workplaces. Its construct and
context transports us to a place that is at times breathtaking,
insightful, instructive, humorous and most of all hopeful. In
a way that only David and John can do, their book tells the
truth about what is and is not happening in our workplace.
It also offers the invitation and a confident pathway to
transforming our workplaces from a place of artificial
limitations and contraction to a place of engagement,
community, and real expansion. It is a portal worth
entering and it is an important book worth reading. Thank
you David and John, for your gift of this book to us. It’s
fabulous. Once read, you can never go back to the old
ways.
Gail Pischak
Shared Visions Inc.
This unlikely combination of cartoons and poetry will bring
a smile to your face. More importantly Assorted Zingers
will make you think. These are zingers that zing.
Richard Axelrod
Author, Terms of Engagement: New Ways of Leading and
Changing Organizations
II
Glad to know that everyone can now enjoy the witty
zingers that David has been sharing with us via email.
They keep our workplace smilingly engaged.
Steve Roesler
CEO Roesler Consulting Group
You’ll cry, you’ll laugh, your life will be forever changed.
And then you’ll crack open this book. And all that will
happen again.
Mr. Simplicity, Bill Jensen
Author, Simplicity and Hacking Work
A reflective mental breather. This book creates space to
think anew. Thank you.
S. Max Brown
VP Org. Learning, Recognition Management Institute
III
Copyright © 2011 by David Zinger
This book is copyrighted material. All rights reserved.
Assorted Zingers
Published 2011 by David Zinger
Design, layout, and production: John B. Junson
IV
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my family for giving
purpose and encouragement to my work. It is also
dedicated to my mother for always believing I was
going to be a writer.
~ David Zinger
This book is gratefully dedicated to Pauline and to
my parents, Noreen and Jack Junson.
~ John Junson
V
Foreword
Rarely do we meet the writer who is as shrewd and
astute with his insights as he is poetic and creative
in expressing them. Welcome to the world of David
Zinger, the person who has put a new face on the
world of employee engagement through his popular
network. With the publishing of this gem, David
now offers us inspiration for deepening our personal
engagement at work. As his friend and colleague,
I have had the distinct pleasure of being witness to
David’s unique brand of genius on many occasions.
It astounds me how he continuously finds new ways
of generously sharing his wisdom and humor, and
with this book, his giftedness as a poet.
There is nowhere like the workplace to play out the
wide spectrum of our human frailty and foolishness, our wisdom and wise-cracking, our smallmindedness and meaning-making. Like fish unable
to recognize water, we often cannot see the full folly
of our ways as we become accustomed to and part
of the larger culture we work in. Thus the need to
stand back, pull focus and gain perspective. If, as
G.K. Chesterton asserts, “There is a road from the
eye to the heart of things that does not go through
the intellect”, this small book provides such a path.
Brimming with surprise and revelation, David
Zinger and John Junson offer a potpourri of creative, joyful and luminous snapshots into our
everyday work life with fresh and, often, breathtaking suggestions of ways in which we might respond.
VI
Through colorful caricatures and the spare lines of
poetic conciseness, we are drawn in to ponder what
is real and what is ridiculous, what is hilarious and
what is holy, what is simply absurd and what should
be absurdly simple. Within these pages you will
experience a breath of fresh air, ample belly laughs,
several wake-up calls, and even a few slaps upside
the head. Poetry and humor are reputed as menaces
to conformity, and they do not break with tradition
here. All in all, they are invitations to shake off our
cynicism, to embrace our humanity, and to inspire
a bias towards action rather than apathy. For those
who care to take the road less traveled in the day to
day journey of life at work – you have found a fitting guidebook! Happy Trails!
Denise Bissonnette
Author, Trainer, Keynote Speaker
Diversity World
www.diversityworld.com
VII
Acknowledgements
This book would not be without John Junson and
his work on design. Obviously John contributed the
cartoons but he also contributed so much more. I
acknowledge Denise Bissonnette, not only for the
foreword to the book, but for our conversations that
lead to the idea of the poet and pragmatist at work.
I’d like to thank Barbara Edie for her editorial
assistance. I also acknowledge the over 3600
members of the Employee Engagement Network for
contributing to my thinking about engagement.
~ David Zinger
First of all, I need to thank David Zinger for many,
many years of friendship and encouragement, and
more recently for giving me the opportunity to work
with him on exciting new projects including this
book. Looking back to my years in Toronto, I need to
acknowledge my late friend, Evan Godt, for teaching
me so much about leadership and communication,
and Derek Gillingham for inspiring me to push
creative boundaries. I certainly need to thank my
parents for all they’ve done for me throughout my
life. Most of all I need to thank my partner, Pauline
Greenhill, for her love, support and patience.
~ John Junson
VIII
Introduction
Welcome to Assorted Zingers a book to tweak and
alter your thinking about work and the workplace.
Each poem or cartoon has a zinger inside the words
or images to encourage you to observe work around
you and your relationship to work and your coworkers. These are not poems or cartoons to ponder
or dissect for hidden meaning or find an iambic pentameter structure. Rather, look at them as small jolts,
glimmers of recognition, or even a short diversion
from your work.
This is also not a book to be read cover to cover
rather open the book like you would open a box
of chocolates and sample a poem or cartoon. Bite
into the cartoon or poem, savor the flavor, and get a
small jolt of working nourishment.
We trust you'll enjoy the cartoons and poems, and
like any good box of chocolate, feel free to share
them or pass them around. You can leave the book
on your desk and let someone come by and bite into
one of the poems or cartoons.
Remember, these cartoons and poems will melt in
your mind not in your hands. They will melt away
rigid views of working, stress from an overload of
demands, and fixed or inflexible views of working
and the workplace.
Go ahead, start reading and take a bite out of work.
IX
The course of courage
Courage
at work
is expression
not impression.
Not medals
but meddle
into what
we care about
not exclusively
but inclusively.
Courage is
the heart at work
and hearty work.
Rather than
a course in courage
courage is following our course.
Or making corrections
while remaining true.
We don’t find courage
we express it.
1
2
Napkin futures
Tabling strategy.
Gel pens drawn
during fast food lunch
sparking napkin artistry.
Ink bleeds
arrows, words, and stick figures
into thin paper.
Absorbing both
strategic thinking
and mustard drips
oozing from the overflowing cheeseburger.
It is going to be a good year.
3
4
Above the bottom line
Dwelling above the bottom line
our contributions
our meaning
our routines
our relationships
our passions
our connections
our fears
our hopes
our irritations
our time
our lives.
Business is looking up.
It doesn’t all come down to the bottom line.
5
6
Ouch
During the annual recognition gala
Jim pinned
the coveted long service pin
right through Julia’s blouse
piercing her skin.
Julia yelped.
Jim stumbled
fumbled
and dropped the pin
down Julia’s blouse.
The annual
employee recognition effort
ended for another year.
7
8
Management
Command and control
lose their seat
to conversation and collaboration.
Organizations humanize into communities
while impositions
quiet respectfully into invitations.
Hierarchy is redrawn on the napkin
into a matrix.
Leadership levels
while management spreads.
Our white space decade ahead
invites us to get more from management
than we ever imagined.
9
10
If
If you can keep
your head
when all about you
are losing theirs
your Blackberry is broken.
11
12
Going horizontal in a vertical world
Our organizational problems
stem from being so vertical in a horizontal world.
Elevators of rank, privilege, and delusion
traverse up and down the corporate hierarchy
giving the illusion of height over width.
Even our page views are portrait, not landscape.
We need to move horizontally
to be in touch with each other.
Can we dwell on the level
rather than taking it to the next level?
Whatever deluded us to think
our title, role, or function put us above
or below anyone else?
I love the limitless stretch of expansive prairie
as we see forever in all directions
never hearing, “look out below.”
13
14
Mistakes
Mistakes were made,
as they always are,
yet here is where the big mistake
takes place.
Blame.
Hide.
Yell.
Cry.
Deny.
Make no mistake.
There will be mistakes.
Let’s just not make two in a row.
15
16
Listen
Can I
Can I talk
Can I talk with you?
Not at, not over, but with.
Our with gives wings.
Can we...
Can we talk...
Can we talk with each other?
Not I, not me, but we.
Of course,
if we talk
it must begin right
hear.
17
18
Corporate without class
The new guy
down the hall
needs to learn
how we do
things around here.
We’ll train him
without a course
by rolling eyes,
banter at lunch, and
afternoon chocolate bribes.
He’ll fit in,
won’t make waves
and tread lightly
around cultural cubicles.
19
20
Encountering variance
We respond to variance
in so many ways
from ignoring to snapping,
from bewilderment to beffudlement.
When we experience variance at work
let it trigger listening
let it trigger understanding
let it trigger learning.
Our approaches may vary
yet it is valuable
to embrace variance
with full acceptance
before moving on.
21
22
And another thing
The guy behind me
in 16A on AC297 to Vancouver
knew everything.
He spewed nonstop advice for three hours
at the woman in 16C.
He never said,
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think?”
“Tell me your ideas.”
Over Moose Jaw I jammed
loud Steely Dan tunes into my ears
to obliterate the irritating expert.
The lesson from 33,000 feet:
Don’t make others listen up
you’ll tune them out.
Rather listen
side by side
to ensure your ideas fly.
23
24
Dick and Jane
He said.
She said.
They said.
We saw.
She saw.
They saw.
What was said,
was sawed,
in half.
There goes Spot.
There goes Puff.
There goes communication.
Goodbye Dick.
Goodbye Jane.
25
26
Gaudi Information
If I was an information architect
I would imitate Gaudi
expressing Spanish flair fused with
Barcelona beat
into artistic displays of moving information.
The information would be beautiful
creating towering displays of data
that would continue to be built well past my
short shelf life.
I would wave information
transforming data points
into curved beauty
abandoning myopic reliance
on straight lines.
I would invite my information patrons
to walk through the data build
unable to keep their hands off of the implications
while grabbing hold of meaningful measures
conveyed in waves of inspiring information.
27
28
Music
We need more music
in our workplaces.
Not insipid elevator tunes,
ear bud iTunes isolation,
or another recruiting video
in the form of a lip sync office dance party.
Rather, music that joins and moves us.
Don’t blow your own horn,
trumpet out a new program,
or drum something into us.
Teach us to hear and make the music
that resides within us, between us,
and from the results of our efforts.
Let’s orchestrate co-created symphonies
of heartfelt work.
29
30
Warsaw 2010
Frigid January in Warsaw
walking down windy frozen streets
in the city leveled
to ruin and rubble (1945).
Chopin pieces play from
push button street benches
giving note to his 200th birthday.
As the frozen mermaid stands guard
singing a song of resilient rejuvenation.
Walking in Warsaw
I realize
we can rebuild,
we can always rebuild.
There is no quit in Warsaw
Warszawa – Dziękuję bardzo.
31
32
Meet well done
We meet.
We discuss.
We plan.
We assign.
We commit.
You would think,
we were in action,
yet we dwell
inaction.
Meetings can be well done and
lean can strip away excess.
Yet actions are rare.
33
34
Know your no
Do you know
your no?
Do you follow
your nose?
Or lose scent of your prey
by a confounding crisscrossing of yeses.
Who knows
that you know
your no?
No need to shout
or shake your head from
left to right and back again.
When you know
your no,
you are also saying yes.
35
36
Slide
Take your seats and
mute your mind.
One obligatory funny slide
devoid of humor
heralding the march of
116 slides of overpopulated data.
Bullet points sprayed at us
like verbal machine gun fire.
Excel worksheets transformed into
3-D data charts fit for magic tricks.
The business case pulled out of a hat.
We slumber into corporate wonderland
wondering where is Alice?
So just in case
you forgot the magic,
the power point is
the point of real connection.
Don’t screen your message
the medium is you.
37
38
Work as soul food
Pizza parties
piece of cake
cookies too
donuts dunked
in copious coffee quaffed
chocolates on desks
stacked in inukshuk figures
guiding the way to the lunch room
weaving by assorted candies scattered
around the office like seashells on a beach.
The challenge is not
to be fed at work.
It is to prepare, share and
create work that nourishes body and soul
without heaping on the bonbons.
39
40
Looking out, looking in
Scott stuck his head into my cubicle,
looking for something that wasn’t there.
Our eyes met
but it was not
me he was looking for.
Sometimes I dream
my cubicle is zoned
inside an aquarium.
I’m about to be schooled by grumpy guppies
when I notice Scott peering through the glass.
I wake up with a terrible need to pee.
41
42
See what I mean?
There is a mean in meaning
but there doesn’t have to be
meanness at work.
The meaning of work
works for me
when I work on me
while working with meaning.
Say what you mean,
mean what you say,
and never be mean.
That’s what I mean.
43
44
Lacuna
Lacuna n. pl. la·cu·nae (-n ). 1. An empty space
or a missing part; a gap.
She came to work
but wasn’t there.
Focus blotched
by last night’s
fear filled family fight.
Invisible scars
deep inside
slicing into her sense of self.
She valiantly but vainly
tries to do her job
like she knows she can
but she can’t.
Last night’s cutting words won’t mute.
We cannot see
what isn’t there
but connect the dots
and we are drawn into an invitation
to punctuate the veil of silence.
We realize our co-worker
was diminished
knocked off balance
by verbal violence
flaring behind closed doors.
This is not the time to tuck our head
deep down into our cubicle shell.
45
46
Glance
Close the form.
Avert your eyes from the screen.
Take a chance on me.
Take a glance at me.
What you see is what you get.
But do you see.
Do you get seeing?
Do you really get it?
No need to stare
deep into data sets.
Just take one glance and let me know
that you see me.
47
48
Winging trust
What happened to trust?
Did it go?
Was it here?
Did it crack open too early
spilling out doubt, deception, and despair?
We are not Humpty Dumpty
perched on the organizational wall
ready to do a group trust fall.
No blindfolded trust walk
through our cubicle maze
will put trust back together again.
Without trust our organization is an empty nest
devoid of the safety and nurturing needed for flight.
Transparency is overrated.
We don’t need to see through you.
We don’t need you to see through us.
We need you to see us through,
as we see you through, too.
Hope not for trust
for hope casts trust into a future that is never here.
Rather gather the twigs —
honesty
caring
empathy
respect
mutuality —
thatch them into an organizational nest
to nourish, protect, and launch us into flight.
49
50
Stereo conflict
In this corner...
The match is about to begin.
Manager poised behind desk.
Employee ready in one corner.
Employee expectant in the other corner.
The bell sounds.
He said she said
but she said “no you are wrong.”
So she said he said
and he said “that isn’t right.”
At the end of 10 rounds
they stopped and awaited the manager’s decision
like plaintiff and defendant on Judge Judy.
The manager paused, deep in thought.
Wondering if he should have spaghetti or salad for lunch.
51
52
Business as usual
We passed.
Elevator door opens.
You enter.
I look at ceiling.
You stare at floor.
Six floors up
we exit.
I escalator up
You escalator down
I look left.
You look right.
We glance at each other
without a hint of acknowledgment.
Then you passed away.
I’m sorry our eyes never met,
like the look between quarterback and receiver
before they connect for a score.
Incomplete. Dropped. Missed.
If only I’d found the gall
to commit an illegal procedure.
Stop the elevator between floors,
look you in the eye, and ask, “how are you?”
It didn’t happen.
Business as usual.
53
54
Just one word
Distill work
into one word.
Blend 4 parts
energy
effort
meaning
contribution
with 4 parts
boredom
frustration
fatigue
irritation
Fuse into one word.
55
56
Engaging breaks
We need a break
or work gets
broken.
57
58
Beyond hope
Hope is a place
in British Columbia
as you drive out of the Canadian Rockies
towards Vancouver.
Hope is not a place
we should journey to at work.
We will get it done
when we embrace
hopelessness.
We don’t hope.
We trust.
We do.
Work in the moment
not drifting dreamingly
towards a mythical future.
When we replace hope with gumption
we get it done.
59
60
Engaging the meatball
Another meatball tossed
on our overflowing
spaghetti-like plate of work.
Before forking into our crowded strands of work
yet another meatball is tossed on the pile
colliding with the meatball already there
precipitating an avalanche of meatballs
hurdling downwards in all directions at once.
If work is to nourish us we must say no
even when we are told, “it is just one more meatball.”
61
62
Dark chocolate
Monday morning at 10:24
Work inertia
Restrained not rested
Feeling antsy and irritable
Wrapped in a brain fuzzy fog
Want to step out
Need to step in
Not out
How sweet it would be
to nibble dark chocolate.
Close eyes.
Inhale.
Just be.
The dark chocolate
lingering
on the roof
of my mouth.
63
64
Citius, Altius, Fortius
Is there a torch within your workplace
lit with the flame that burns within
while also being passed along?
We need Prometheus like people at work
with the courage to steal fire from Zeus
and champion human kindness.
Catch a flame and pass it on
swifter, higher, stronger.
As you carry the torch the torch will carry you.
65
66
Flood of work
Work flows like a raging river
washing over sandbags of effort
all sense of calmness washed away
and “where the hell is that file?”
Our stress management skills
no longer hold back the flood of
demands, threats, conflicts and hassles.
Even a broken paper clip can snap us into stress.
We are mired knee deep in irritation
as our heels sink into the mud
and the shine leaves our shoes.
We grab a late latte lunch
to make it past 2:30 without dozing at our desk.
We must craft a raft.
A raft of resilience thatched with
calming breaths, realistic expectations, and human kindness.
Using no as our rudder to steer away from
turbulent waves of relentless work.
When the water recedes,
will the cherry blossoms bloom?
67
68
Below the surface
We swim in an ocean of performance.
We do this, we do that.
The work gets done.
We swim in schools
biting on skills and
hooked on corporate competencies.
You cast your net
into this oceanic performance.
Catching our movement to assign a score.
Will we be a trophy
brought on board
or thrown back for being marginal?
Scaling our initiative from 1 to 5.
A year’s performance cut open
You thin slice our teamwork to 4.3.
Toss your scales aside.
Jump overboard.
Swim with us.
69
70
Passchendaele progress
How do we manage change
while barely changing ourselves?
We are caught in no man’s land
charging out of trenches
to who knows where and
we can’t go back.
Yet we are not moving forward.
We keep our heads down as
barrages of tips and tactics
explode over our heads
while three more screens scream.
Face down in the mud
we hear the management consultants bellow out
the latest 55 rules of success and the
200 competencies we need to achieve them.
Or they send us anemic marching orders
dressed up as large font 100-page parable books
about moving cheese or learning five secrets.
Perhaps it is time to just stop in the muck
see where we are and if we really need to
storm the next trench.
Let’s look ahead and look carefully
at what we leave behind
before we race head long into a Passchendaele parade.
71
72
Branded
Are you branded?
Painted and tainted by marketing mavens.
Packaged like a box of Tide
until soap stings your eyes.
Can you be a personal brand without
a logo, a swoosh, a blog, a tweet
or a tightly rehearsed 30-second elevator pitch?
Would you ever want to be stuck
in an elevator
sealed in as the door closes
and your traveling companion
regales you with their pithy elevator speech
when all you asked was,
“what floor?”
My father, the irreverent CPR railroad executive
offered me his leadership legacy:
“Son, in life you are going to fart, fumble, fall and fail.”
Without our vulnerability to be sliced by paper cuts
we become nothing more than a box of Tide
Squeaky clean.
Far too soapy.
Used up after just one rinse.
73
74
Line of sight
When we are
flying high
above the earth
33,000 feet over Saskatchewan prairie
and look down through our small window
do clouds obscure
or do we see the clouds
and the prairie
frame each other
like an Escher print
so that we are
grounded in clouds
of floating movement?
75
76
Six words
This poem, every line, six words
Can the story of your work
Be worked out in six words?
Is that too much to ask?
Would it be a Chaplin comedy?
Would it be a Chaplin tragedy?
Would it even have a plot?
Choose your six words very carefully
With toil and labor over meaning.
Can six words capture the essence?
And what will you leave out?
Express six words of your work.
Go ahead, try it, write now.
One two three four five six.
Never forget Ernest Hemingway’s great story.
“For sale, baby shoes, never worn.”
77
78
Humor me
There is no joy in Mudville
When did work stop being fun
so much that we needed workshops white papers
and gurus to convince us to play?
Holy mackerel do we really need to flop
plush fish over cubicle dividers
to demonstrate our laughter competency?
Forced fun feels phony like spilt snake oil
ponding on a boardroom table while minutes are read
hours are missed and venom stains the oak.
Meanwhile Guru Garry pinches clown noses to our faces
leading us in a mantra minute we chant, “ha ha ha!”
79
80
I to I
I am learning to be more myself.
I am learning to be more.
I am learning to be.
I am learning to.
I am learning.
I am.
I
81
82
The Reorganization
They moved us,
yet we were not moved.
They changed us,
yet we remained the same.
Boxes on pyramidal charts
yanked off the shelf
like Cheerios from a grocery store.
They morphed us
into a matrix.
Duties reassigned as we searched
for our coffee mug that failed to move with us.
They pushed.
We stiffened.
Memos menaced as washroom whispers hissed.
Bounce back.
Start over.
Invite us.
Ask us.
Involve us.
Trust us.
We move together,
not chess pieces at war
checking each other into corners,
we play on the same board.
83
84
Two roads diverged
Let me tell you a tale
about the disengaged.
A tell tale sign is
you are told not asked,
you are fringed not foreground,
work is an energy drain,
not an energy gain.
You would rather be anywhere else,
yet you seem stuck in place.
And you have to stay
because of the pension, economy, fear, benefits
or just the plain inertia of it all.
It is time to tell a different tale
where you are connected
in the foreground
gaining energy
and making contributions.
If that tale cannot be told
get your tail out of there.
You only have so many days to work
and when you work in the those days
and those days work for you
it makes all the difference.
85
86
Payday
When did it become
the way of work
to hate
our work
our organization
and our peers?
The daily distaste for work
crumbled our contributions
into gritty crumbs
lacking nourishment
for body, soul and self.
Is this what we get paid for?
87
88
Retirement
He knew his number.
The golden watch.
With a Sisyphus-like countdown
he watched his watch
in a hypnotic passage of working days.
He longed to retire and escape daze
filled with lethargy and loathing.
The day came
he got the parting golden watch, a good pension,
and false freedom.
Imagine his dismay when nothing changed.
He made his number
but learned too late that
the 30-year watch had actually filled his days.
The countdown ended without liftoff.
Retirement was much like working.
We can’t go back in time.
We can only move forward
into the time we have.
Our days our truly numbered
if we believe
we will live better in a future time or place.
Work/life balance is not 30 years of working
followed by 30 years of not.
Work/life balance is to fully
infuse work into our life and
life into our work.
Do you know what time it is?
89
90
Career mayday
One pilot.
Sparse cabin crew.
A full load of passengers.
Passengers idle time away waiting to board
Fight boredom in flight
Ignore the person sitting two inches away
then at the end of the flight leap out of their seats
to stand in the aisle moving nowhere
waiting to disembark.
At work we need more pilots less baggage
to file our own flight plan
navigate our own career
as work takes off.
We can only fly into the future
sitting in the captain’s seat
with our hand on the throttle.
91
92
Just managing
Are you stuck on the management grid?
We manage to manage just about everything.
We manage people
and enroll in stress management.
We practice project management
then learn anger management.
We manage impressions
and manage by walking around.
We manage expectations
and learn disaster management.
We manage by objectives and by exceptions.
We learn performance management
and take something for pain management.
We even manage to get by.
I hunger to see the horse run free,
running off the grid
unmanageable, unfettered, and unafraid.
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Punctuated leadership
How do you
punctuate your leadership?
Are you a “.”
bringing work to an end
having the answer
knowing when to stop?
Are you a “,”
with just one more thing
creating lists
merely pausing but never stopping?
Are you a “@”
head bowed
in reverence to screen
checking yet another email?
Are you a “!”
jumping around
shouting announcements
making declarations?
Are you a “( )”
keeping things inside and together
keeping things out
building a silo?
Of course you’re not
a punctuation mark
but what mark
will your leadership leave?
Perhaps your answer
is exactly the punctuation needed.
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Too tense
If you are too tense
at work
you are probably
dwelling in the wrong tense.
Either the future tense of anxiety
or the past tense of guilt and regret.
To be less tense
drop the past,
stop reaching for the future
and live in the present.
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Waiting
Is waiting a room
you sit impatiently in
feeling the weight of the world
holding you back
from what you seek,
or is waiting a space you inhabit
as long as you are there?
What are you waiting for
and where are you
while you wait?
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Broken
There was no ring
just a promise
til retirement do us part
or so we thought.
We were barely together.
You took me for granted and
I felt entitled.
Drifting and shifting
from joined to strained.
We both saw it.
Said nothing.
Time passed.
On the yearly anonymous survey
I let you have it.
Conveyed in numbers transformed into graphs
I declared myself disengaged
as you felt dismayed.
I don’t want it this way
neither do you.
Let’s stop being so anonymous.
No more surveys.
No more whispered grumbling.
To engage is to connect.
Let’s cast aside the blame,
call me by my name.
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Tongue depressant
Nobody talked
as the project tanked.
At least not in public.
Heads bowed.
Eyes averted.
Tongues bitten to avoid
possible tongue lashing.
There was no conversational alchemy
only a fool’s gold
of thought transmuted
into working whispers
and empty silence.
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It is later than you think
Our 2:30 meeting
never begins
at 2:30.
And even if we
booked it
for 2:45
we would still not start
on time.
For in our workplace
on time
is always
10 minutes later
than it is.
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Circling work
I sit
in a cubicle
at the bottom
of the pyramid.
Distant voices
cascade down the structure
cajoling me to
work harder
work smarter
work it out
keep working.
I don’t long.
I don’t belong.
I churn out unread reports.
Pyramids were built
to house dead people.
Yet I’m alive.
I’m here.
Hear me out.
Seek me out.
Let’s throw this pyramid a curve
smoothing sharp edges
into a circle.
The circle of connection, healing and work.
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David Zinger is a global employee engagement
expert who founded the Employee Engagement
Network. David is the author of Zengage.
David is a sought after speaker and consultant on
engagement who has worked from Winnipeg to
Warsaw and Wales. Contact David Zinger at
www.davidzinger.com.
John Junson is a web designer, graphic artist,
photographer and cartoonist. He is a co-owner of
WeatherTec Services, a company that provides
weather maps and forecasts for newspapers.
He is the featured resident cartoonist on the
Employee Engagement Network. You can see his
work at www.employeeengagement.ning.com.
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