Feeling like a hypocrite in the corporate machine (with poetry)
but don't I know better?
Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a cozy homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. Here, you’ll marvel the mundane and wish for your wild, while reveling in rest.
You’ll learn about how to support your habitual travel adventures alongside your happy home base (even the one inside your own head). Cool kids subscribe. I appreciate you!
Maybe it’s my Enneagram type (7) or my Rising sign (Leo) or just a healthy ego, but I like to think of myself as different, and unique.
Someone who stands out from the crowd.
And I like to think that I know better. I consider PTO to be sacred — I never miss a chance to use it. (Like seriously, use your PTO.) I know what it’s like to *gently* rail against the machine and not give up boundaries or flexibility. I chose to live alternatively out of a school bus with only 200 sq ft, and “settling down” is my least favorite phrase in the English language.
And yet, I still find myself a boring cog in the same old machine.
While laugh-crying at memes about Mondays and “working for the weekend,” I use terms like “circle back” and “align on process” — making me feel like I might throw up in my mouth.
I write poetry to cope. But also to thrive?
Worship at the wheel
Chop chop
and ASAP. Faster, stronger
efficient, exponential
growth. Cog and wheels,
per my last email. Circle
back, forever and ever,amen.
And yet, this is how I truly feel, for all of us:
I hope this email never finds you
Let grass grow, invade
waning keyboards. Waves crest
columns of waterlogged spreadsheets.
Dandelions swim through half
drunk coffee cups. Volcanoes ten thousand
miles away bristle. Fault lines meet
when a meeting is added to the Calendar
pockmarked by beehives.
I hope this email finds you well.
Far and gone. Never
to return except coated by moss.
And algae and mushrooms.
Smelling of forestry and nature things.
I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not. I’m not that unique. I’m a burnt-out cog in a corporate machine. Work stresses me out, and some days I’m stressed out by work.
I do it for the health insurance and the creative challenge. I do it for the funny memes my coworkers send me, and, of course, the paycheck. I’m not special. I do want to share work that matters, and I believe I do. And yet, I feel like a faceless drone.
Hypocrisy oozes from me as just another burnt-out worker, counting my PTO days like precious coins in my coffer. I get jealous when I see someone post photos of their treks through the desert, and guilty when I recognize how fortunate I am to have a job. (…right?)
But isn’t there something beautiful, or maybe earnest, in that? We’re all working to enjoy the work, in whatever way we can. Virtual happy hours, gifs from The Office, cats who give zero fucks as they walk in front of Teams calls.
Standing desks that face the window, for that perfect Zoom video glow and the bonus of seeing the outdoors just past the computer screen.
This isn’t a surrender to the climate of industry. This is a revolution to fill the coffers alongside my soul, in little moments of joy.
If you’re new here…
Hi! I’m Jordan, and Shade Cactus is where being a homebody and always planning your next travel adventure come to meet. It’s a travel blog / poetry newsletter / attempt to understand my inner world a bit better each day.
Subscribers can expect weekly-ish newsletters from me (and my forever undying gratitude!)
