Tick Tock !

Tick Tock ! Tick Tock !
This clock never stops.
Just an endless stream of dreary drudge,
and days filled with endless knocks.
My mind slips back to wonder on opportunities not done,
of adventure, excitement and days spent simply with fun.
A toxic manager prowls the space,
an aggressive bully boy with hate on his face.
Belittling colleagues on a daily basis causing
untold stress in sacred family places.
How do I move on from such a despicable place?
I am chained to my mortgage with no chance of escape.
Head down and work on and hope I don’t get a mention,
counting down the days till I can draw my pension.
Here we go again.
Wasting days with students while pretending to be a friend.
Satisfaction surveys don’t have value.
Today’s student voice is just so shallow.
Yet here we are driving on,
working in a sector that chants its own swan song.
Colleagues before me all get promoted.
No skills, no experience – they just get things ‘sorted’.
Every day academic glory gets aborted.
Yet where do I sit in this bonfire of vanities ?
Shaped by the pressure of an increasing mortgage fee.
I am chained to my desk like some lonely lifer,
trying to hide from such absurd banality.
Darkness is falling across this concrete land.
My back aches, my hand is sore as I try to understand,
the writing before me but its just so bad.
Littered with mistakes that make me sad.
This students’ degree is at stake.
But what’s this I spy ? Could it be ?
A section copied from ChatGPT !
The long hard day goes by.
Working every hour till I go home to cry.
Is a life spent with no life skills a life had at all ?
Or is it something worse like a shadowy pall ?
If i could reach back to my younger self and whisper in my ear
I would say walk on and don’t look in – become an engineer.

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This poem was submitted as part of the LSE HE Blog’s Poetry Amnesty.