Our brains ache, in the merciless bear market trade winds that knife at us...
Wearied we keep awake because leadership remains silent...
Low spirits confuse our memory of the salient...
Worried by silence, employees whisper, curious, nervous,
But nothing happens.---------------------
Watching the layoff.com, we read the mad gusts of often unfounded rumors,
Downward incessantly, the flickering oil price tumbles,
For deep water, incessantly, the data rooms rumble
Far off, like a dull rumor of some other world, unconventionals continue to defy the old order.
What comes next we wonder?------------
The poignant misery of the arctic and deep water explorer begins to grow...
We only know the 1980s lasted, OPEC oil can soak, and clouds sag stormy China markets.
Dawn massing in the east her COST army
Attacks once more on shivering rows of beige offices,
But nothing happens.----------------------
Sudden successive flights of town halls and e-mail streak the silence.
Less deadly than that conference room that shudders black March memories,
We watch them wandering up and down the corridors - nonchalance,
But nothing happens.----------------------
Pale faces with lingering stealth come to our doors -
We cringe in our offices, think back on forgotten dreams, and stare,
Deep water, success and a chance to grow. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
Is it that we are to play a future role?------------
Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the stock price current
For hours in the office we had toiled - the innocent: but the price doesn't care;
The company must respond, shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed -
We turn back to our wondering.-------------
Soon, the HR exit interview frost will fasten on this company and many of us
Shriveling many BUs, puckering teams crisp.
The redundancy-party, pens and forms in their shaking grasp,
Pausing staring over desks to dispatch half-known faces. All their eyes are like ice,
But nothing happens.----------------------
Wilfred Owen (apologies)