Clancy Of The Agency

(With apologies to Banjo Paterson)

I had written him an email which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down on Collins St, years ago,
He was recruiting when I knew him, so I sent the email to him,
Just `on spec', addressed as follows, `Clancy, of the Agency.

And an answer came directed in a style unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with an auto-response by an ATS)
'Twas his PA who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
`We have received your application and will deal with it in due course'

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Reading my CV `down on Collins St’ where the Recruiters sip their lattes;
As the applications roll on in, Clancy casts his eyes upon them,
For the recruiter’s life has pleasures that others never know.

And the recruiter hath friends to twitter him, and their kindly voices tweet him
In the shuffling of the pages and the street and in its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the PSA extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting cashflow.

I am sitting in my dingy hated job, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the buildings tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty cubicle
And the aircon vent spluttering, spreads its foulness over all

And in place of Tweetdeck chirping, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the 'buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the my downcast colleagues fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless sound of printers.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For candidates like me have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at recruiting where the emails come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the CRM and the telephone
But I doubt he'd swap the office, Clancy, of `The Agency.