Rudyard Kipling as a Job Consultant

by Frank Jacobs

If you can get yourself a fancy title,
    Though no one knows just what your job’s about,
If you can screw up projects that are vital,
    Then shift the blame before they find you out;
If you can treat a rival like a brother,
    Then stab him in the back each chance you can;
If you can steal the program of another,
    Then take the credit that it was your plan;

If you can rig expenses that are phony,
    While everyone believes that they are real;
If you can take long lunches with a crony,
    And make your boss believe you’ve closed a deal;
If you can get the office staff to love you,
    When in your heart of hearts you think they’re dirt;
If you can look alive to those above you,
    When nine to five no effort you exert;

If you can seem free-thinking and courageous,
    Yet always end up siding with your boss;
If you can get a mammoth raise in wages,
    Yet make him feel you’re working at a loss;
If every line that’s written here you’ve noted,
    And every rule and precept you obey,
Then to the highest spot you’ll be promoted,
    Unless, of course, you’re knifed along the way.

Note from Joe: I read the above poem for the first time last night. It tickled me, because as a child I loved Kipling’s “IF”, and one of my own first attempts at poetry was also a parody on it. For archival purposes only, here’s my parody. It shows the way my brain worked ’way back when I was a high school student. I’m afraid that back then I was much smarter than I am now.

An Ode to Richard M. Nixon

by Joseph K. Horn
(with apologies to Rudyard Kipling)

If you can keep your wealth when all about you
    Are losing theirs from paying income tax;
If you can make quite sure that no one doubts you
    By selling to the networks your own “facts”;

If you can reap the harvest that is waiting
    For those who fight both sides of one same war;
If you spend hours televised, debating
    For bussing and for “welfare” for the “poor”;

If you can trade with Reds, and all the while
    Be charging what they owe to our own banks;
If you can have us lose a war, then smile,
    Because you know you’re only getting thanks;

If you can hold an office, but each minute
    Be out afloat, and calmly goin’ fishin’,
The U.S.A. is yours, and all that’s in it,
    Because, my son, you’ll be a politician.