The Corporate Noose - Poem Review

"You might not say it, but the men have a short hair template, hence the uniformity. Ditto for the ladies – there is an unseen diktat for the length, color, and unexplained, silken straightness. Their dress choices too are borne out of some unseen, unwritten commandment, hence uniform. 

When they stand in a queue for the elevators, while waiting for their orders at the cafe, while smoking, while waiting for their turn at the comfort rooms, or doing nothing, they are looking at screens of all sizes, sucked into a wonder-world of text and pictures.  

And each one of them has it around their necks – a beaded steel string, a polyester ribbon, or a braided paracord with a card in a cardholder. While they are aware of their shirts and suits, and boots and belts, they forget this important noose around their necks, their visa to a vast cosmos of hierarchies, clients, appraisals, and processed, dry creative juices." 

I remember when I was still working with an international company, life was routinary and most of the times the environment in the company dictates me how to choose, what to choose; how to act, what to act. I understand the need for uniformity for the sake of the company's performance and for the sake of passing to the standards of different organizations, but when a company invades even my personal choices, then I know that's the time to leave.

I have had this small group in the community. I was happy being able to know them personally, sharing with them my daily happenings, letting them know even my problems and some little secrets in life. I thought everything was okay but when they started to put that rope around my neck and force me to follow them and behave like them, I know that’s the time to get out of the group.

The noose that pulls us is not just within a corporate world, it is within our own society, within our own world. This noose, gradually pulls us to a life that looks promising, luxurious, lavish but in fact that life is for them not for us to live in.

Don’t put on that noose just to survive for a day or a moment or to be in or be relevant for others. I understand that life sometimes gives us a very few choices, especially when you’re in need; but don’t let the noose be around your neck for long. It does not loosen, it tightens from day to day instead, until unknowingly, you are already on the verge and you can no longer prevent the noose from hanging you.

This is an excerpt of a poem from the book ‘Borderless’ of Indrajeet Dasgupta which will be launched by September this year.