Nine to Five — A Poem

Reflecting on my past 9–5 work life

In May of 1980, I was sitting at an office desk working a temporary job as an administrative assistant for a big corporation in Los Angeles. At the time, I was amid trying to decide if I was going to halt my dance career I loved so much, transition to becoming a dance teacher, or abandon the stage entirely for some other professional option.

My ability to type 100+ words per minute since high school typing class had been an income godsend before when I was in between theater and dancing gigs.

Shortly after that temporary assignment, I ended up in another better temporary position that turned out to be my entrance into an information technology (computer and software) career that served me incredibly well for the rest of my life when I needed a good income.

However, during this particular assignment, I was clearly bemoaning the drudgery of corporate life I was dealing with at the time because this poem spewed forth out of me during lunchtime that day.

Maybe you’ve had these same feelings at your job, but I want to hope that corporate and business office life has gotten better since then. With remote and hybrid work options, flexible scheduling, job sharing, and other more recent developments in the world of work, I hope it’s better for most workers than it was back then.