Advice To An Applicant - Parody Rudyard Kipling – If Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

Advice To An Applicant - Parody Rudyard Kipling – If

Rating: 4.5


If you can back your boss and keep on smiling,
while toning down his brash absurdities,
if, having watched the man manhandle filing,
you rearrange the folders pretty please,
if coy and charming, beautiful, beguiling,
anticipating all contingencies,
you manage new accounts, contacts redialling,
correct crass spelling, cover vagaries...

If you can keep your head while he’s resiling,
evolve successful counter-strategies,
if ‘mum’s the word’, discrete, effective tyling,
from busy-bodies safe when he agrees.
If you can spend your time in reconciling
his intellectual inanities,
never upset his fragile ego, heiling
whene’er he feels the need, or profits sneeze...

If Windows easy comes, while modem dialing
to DSL migration’s not a tease,
if firewall free from viruses hostiling
you clean can keep, recalling password keys,
if the above you show him recompiling
the data lost when he lacks expertise, -
yet know your place as cypher, never riling,
remembering to bow before ‘big cheese’...

If you can stand him publicly reviling
your good ideas, then claim them his with ease,
can watch while rival’s ruin he’s compiling
so coldly that a lizard’s blood would freeze.
If when betrayed by his ambitious wiling
you triumph through innate abilities,
ignoring basic scheming, baser guiling,
you seize the precious point he never sees! ...

If you won’t blush when, rash, he’ll rush, exiling
your intuitions as freak fantasies,
but confidently while free-time he’s whiling,
circumvent his incapacities.
Surpassing him in brains, tact, versatiling,
you never strive to swap your salaries,
but both feet on the ground, still patient, smiling,
can counteract his incoherencies...

If you are sure his image needs restyling,
select the suits that suit down to the tees,
if you are ever ready camomiling,
or sprinkling sugar, creaming, coffee, teas,
if you can trick his wayward infantiling
and censure not his immaturities,
ignore his clumsy tries at fond defling,
yet fondled, tactful, rise from off his knees...

If you take three degrees while reconciling
your private life to further Ph.D.’s,
if you can children bear without work piling
and keep them free from trouble and disease,
if you can spring his quick promotion – vile thing –
and play the game of happy families...
Your’s is the job, the rest’s cosmetic styling,
the prized princess and pride of... secret’ries!



21 Februrary 1990 & 23 May 2005

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
james smith 01 May 2021

brilliant as ever. I have been in this position and it is quietly tough.

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