poem
WRITTEN:
1987, 20 years
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
This came about as a result of the job I held for most of 1987. We used to have a joke: "pick a number, any number - I guarantee it won't be there" - the number being an invoice number, of course. There was something seriously wrong with the filing system and it inevitably fell to me to sort it out. The invoices we used were of the earlier carbonless multipart types, and they would fade, blotch, curl up and do all kinds of inconvenient things that rendered them hard to read and impossible to photocopy.
Our Invoice
Who art in Limbo
Hallowed be thy Reference Number
May thy Perforations perforate
At the right time and in the right place
As they did when the stationery rep demonstrated them to us last week
And forgive us our Stock Code Errors
As we forgive those who spill coffee on our Backup Disks
And lead us not into Endless Filing
For thou art the Backbone of our Business
The Ultimate of all Omnipotent Papers
Amen