I was walking across a mall parking lot in Mobile, Alabama when I met a kid on the back stoop of a McDonald’s. We talked for a while. Here’s to meaningful work and the service economy. Don’t you get trapped.

Every night this week I’ve scrubbed these floors
Turned off these lights and locked these doors
There’s a lot of stuff that I ignore
Like what I do this for
I make sixty more bucks overtime
In dreams at night I stand in line
It all runs together, I can’t find
What’s theirs and what is mine
I look at what’s become of me
A pawn in some economy
Almost gone at twenty three
Working in a dead end job
Working in a dead end job

I have nothing planned and nothing saved
My future’s stopped by microwaves
Styrofoam containers make my grave
I know they’ll bury me
People look at me like I’m not there
They talk to me with vacant stares
Long as they get served, they don’t care
They just think I’m dumb
But I’m not stupid, I’m not dumb
I’ve just gone a little numb
So I don’t dream of what’s to come
Working at a dead end job

No need to wake me and tell me this real
I’m doing all right, as long as I don’t feel.

Every single day I’m hanging on
The thread is bare, my vision’s gone
Something in me wonders just how long
But it goes on and on
I will work this job until I die
My boss will come and say goodbye
I could not have been a nicer guy
But I didn’t do a thing
I’m still here, my heart still throbs
But I am just some poor dumb slob
Watching as my life gets robbed
Working at a dead end job
Working at a dead end job

© Bill Harley, all rights reserved. Reprints with permission only.