Management Disease

(in the spirit of sharp observational satire)

Well the warning lights are flashing in the quarterly review

Somebody missed a target so they formed a taskforce too

There’s consultants in the hallway selling “human-centered change”

Everybody’s reorganized but nothing really changed

There’s a meeting in the boardroom trying to define the pain

There’s a spreadsheet in the cloud explaining why morale declined

Someone sneezed in HR and they called compliance please

Goodness me, could this be management disease?

The project lead got certified in seven methods overnight

The Scrum Master burned out trying to keep the workflow light

The wellness coach is crying while the CEO agrees

Everybody’s suffering management disease

There’s panic on the Teams call, cameras off

Some are “working hybrid,” some are “quiet quitting” soft

Some blame the algorithm, some the employees

Everybody knows it’s management disease

Yeah now the workforce is exhausted, downs tools, walks

Experience gets ignored while the LinkedIn guru talks

Everybody’s optimizing everybody else’s needs

These are classic symptoms of management disease

On podcasts and webinars they talk about “the cure”

Authenticity for shareholders, disruption for the poor

History’s repeating in expensive ESG’s

Sociologists invent words that mean “management disease”

Doctor KPI declared, “I’m not surprised to see you here

You’ve got Zoom fatigue from meetings and career anxiety from fear

You’ve been benchmarking your value against productivity

But worst of all young man, you’ve got management disease”

He wrote me a prescription, said “Take a mental health day please,

Practice mindful breathing while the layoffs get underway

Come back next quarter, if your contract still agrees

Send in another victim of management disease”

Ah splendid...

Now I went down to LinkedIn Corner, I was thunderstruck

They got thought-leadership influencers and recruiters in trucks

Two men say they’re visionaries, one of them must be wrong

There’s a branding strategist singing a purpose-driven song

He says:

“They wanna automate your job to maximize the yield

They wanna track your heartbeat while pretending that they heal

They wanna sell your burnout back as leadership expertise

They wanna monetize management disease

They’re pointing at efficiency to keep you deaf and blind

They wanna drain your energy and colonize your mind

Give you corporate values, free fruit, diversity

A mindfulness subscription and mandatory positivity”

Meanwhile the first guru says

“I’ll cure it all with AI

Abolish middle management and teach the bots empathy”

The other one’s on a podcast speaking endlessly

How come everybody’s got management disease?