So, in context, this poem is a little embarrassing to me now. I wrote it when I was seventeen, and the job I was trying to get was in fast food. Let me just say that when you’ve never earned money from someone other than your parents, there is a strange sort of thrill that exists for even that greasy, vat-scrubbing, meat-slopping kind of job. My first was at Arby’s. My second was Tim Horton’s; less grease, more sugar, but by then the change was not so exciting. I’ll never get passionate-poem urges over anything less than a dream job now. Such is my jaded age of thirty.

I’ve got resumes so nicely spaced and neatly printed,

Straight and narrow reputation completely undinted,

I’ll work minimum wage 50 hours a week,

I’ll work ungodly hours when you all wanna sleep,

I’m desperate and I’ll do whatever it takes,

Still you Can’t, Don’t, Not, Won’t want to hire me!

I am passionate in all I do and all I plan to,

Never slack off on ambition that I’ve set my mind to,

I’ll work up my time ’til I have none at all,

Nose-to-the-grindstone ’til I’ve scrubbed it raw

I’m desperate and I’ve gotta know why it is,

That you Can’t, Don’t, Not, Won’t want to hire me!