Poetic Licence: The Prisoner of the Electronic Cottage

THERE ARE now 1.3 million people in the UK working full time or part time from home. This figure is expected to rise to three million by the year 2004. Health professionals, however, believe that teleworkers are prone to a range of psychiatric illnesses because of the isolation of home working

The Prisoner of the Electronic Cottage

Last night I dreamt of briefcases, umbrellas

In faded files of office lives I had

Yeah sure, I miss the Fridays and the flirting

But drinking after work was always sad.

To evening cavalcades of bushed commuters

Whose footsteps echo in the street below

The prisoner of the electronic cottage

In silence mouths: "Hello."

It's crazy, but I sometimes miss commuting

The open fields between the stations crossed

When dazzled by the oil-seed rape in springtime

Or woodlands in the winter with the frost.

The names of stations still return to haunt me

Like girlfriends from the past I never call

I, prisoner of the electronic cottage

Send greetings to you all.

But documents are faxed and claims submitted

The words sent down the wire to those outside

And abstracts become "products" in translation

My overtime and Lebensraum collide

As I commute from bedroom down to work space

The dress-down days drag on for weeks - or years

I, prisoner of the electronic cottage,

Am often bored to tears

And in the numbness of a midweek morning

Above the underwash of far-off cars

The birds of mental illness tap the window

But discipline is all, behind these bars

A strict routine, clean-shaven, no pyjamas

In working time, bodes well for my appeal

The sunlight, my solicitor, is hopeful

Perhaps we'll strike a deal.