hackwork…
it’s not quite
break-your-back work,
but it chisels at the soul
it’s selling your mind
to fill your stomach
it’s bleeding your heart
to feed your loved ones
hackwork...
it’s slowly dying while you’re
at work,
but falling further from the goal
it’s checking creativity at the door—
it’s trading time for money
hackwork…
it doesn’t care who you are
it doesn’t care where you’re going
it just takes what you have to give…
so hack it up if you really need to,
but, please, don’t hack it up too long
oh god…
please help me know
when it’s been too long…
Garbage Notes:
This is one of the first real poems I had ever written. Or at least it’s one of the first that still survives to this day.
I wrote it, probably, I’d say, about seven or eight years ago. I was at this job that was literally the worst possible job I could have ever attempted. It was at a speech recognition company. Imagine me, this creative and hyper-sensitive introverted person, working in the fast-paced tech industry. It was truly awful.
I won’t go too much into the work itself or what position I had—but it was intense and very demanding. Plus the product I was working on sort of embodied the antithesis of what I believed in as a human being. And what was most disappointing was that the job required very little of the skills and strengths I had been honing for years as a PhD student back when I was studying psychology.
The whole thing had threatened to turn me into a different person, really. And I wrote this poem to describe what it felt like chipping away, day after day, at the type of work that I didn’t care for even one bit.
The job paid so much money though, and to this day, I made more money in my short time at that company than I’ve probably made in all of my years combined as a writer. Which is so sad, but it also tells you how much chasing money doesn’t make you happy.
Needless to say, I wasn’t there long. It was after I left for good that I started writing and really taking fiction and literature seriously. And all along, I kept working on poems too. Continuing what I had started. It was the beginning of something beautiful for me. A new phase of life.
It was the hackwork, which, in an ironic twist, paved the way for me becoming the writer I am today.
Franco Amati 2023
All the bad ones pay well, true story and such a shame for us the dreamers...also, love your voice, it's so soothing xx
I promised my Dean to come back after 2yrs to complete my PhD, after earning some, but that never happened.
They never happen, these jobs suck you though I was happy with my pay package....
And if you don't listen to yourself, life finds a way to put you in your path:))
It is nice you shared such an old poem Franco, Thank you!