Charles M. Whitt

It’s Mayday, so I thought I’d give you one last poem from a Kentucky poet and working man:

Time Clocks

I guess I’m just funny that way
but I have always felt
that there is something dehumanizing
about time clocks.
It’s hard to think of them
as just necessary evils,
even prisoners don’t punch time clocks.
The new ones aren’t exactly
inanimate either. They snatch
your card and wink as if to say,
“I’ve got your number buddy,”
then return it grudgingly like
the dirty little spies they are.
At first it hurt my feelings
to think the company didn’t trust me
to get in my eight hours.
Then I realized they want us
to try to cheat and get nabbed
by the foolproof scheme.
Someone, somewhere, I’m sure
gets a lot of satisfaction from that.

— Charles M. Whitt, originally published in Working Steel

Charlie Whitt worked steel in the Ashland Works for 22 years.