Forgetting is a required skill: blot out anything harder than your mum’s final golden glass of

sauvignon blanc. How many nights did you spend there, where oil and hand grease laminated

the plastic of the ancient game’s joy-stick, seeking the sight of your name in three-letter glory? 

     The smell of a beer-stained pub carpet is an odd in-joke you now share with your inner twelve year-old. Sick leave does not

     cover melancholy, so if you must complain, please scream into the concrete box in the bleakest corner of your office. Wait

     five to seven  business days before screaming again. For efficiency’s sake, leave your need for meaning in action at the door. 
     Choke out the sunset’s glow over power lines, and the sight of bats speckling an outer-suburban sunset through a yellowed pub window. Forget the taste of garlic bread sinking

through your tongue on a humid November night, and scrap the way that if your acting was good enough, your Dad would join in on pretending you were asleep and you would be carried

from the Commodore’s back seat into bed. When have you ever needed the brass railing of the stairs as up you went, buoyed by the precious one-dollar coin in your fist and the knowledge

that you were loved? Let reminder-riddled post-it notes pile down your burning throat and only ever contemplate if it’s about why your manager has been CC’d. Become dead-eyed, bogged

     down and wired up, learn what an RSI is, and how to steal sleep while haunted by visions of spreadsheets. After all, wonder and finding joy in small things are not useful KPIs. 
     But once your sensors for meaning are blunted by the terms ‘time-poor’ and ‘value-add,’ et cetera it will be simpler to swallow,

     anyway: hold up the part of you where your soul burns through the lens of your self and put a pin in it. Like Io into an ox you’ll

     shift your shape, and assume the strained skin of an admin rockstar who thrives under tight deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
Sometime  there might be a punchier pain than a station barrier pinching you, or the EFTPOS at

a Woolies’ self-service declaring ‘DECLINED.’ If so, just slip on a thicker pair of quirky socks,

and haul on a formal coat. All it is is another friendly reminder that your score will not be saved.