Shakespeare Was Technically A Writer

["Mark D. Walker" <MWALKER -at- CONNECT4 -dot- SLC -dot- UNISYSGSG -dot- COM>]

I just rediscovered the following item, which up I picked years ago
from a teacher-turned-tech writer-turned-program manager.  Those who
work for defense contractors may appreciate it a bit more than
commercial types.


To write or not to write: That is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind
to endure the barbs and bull
of outrageous customers or to take action against them,
and by opposing, lose the contract.

To write: To teach, no more
and by teaching to say we end the heartache
and infinite natural garbage the writer is heir to...
'Tis a resignation devoutly to be wished...

To write: To teach.
To teach: Perchance to be unemployed.
Aye, there's the rub.
For in that dearth of work, what poverty may come
when we have shuffled off the security debrief
must give us pause.  There's the respect that makes
tolerable defense contract life.

For who would bear the engineer's jokes,
the malignity of repro, the pangs of despise'd manuals,
the art work delays, when he himself might his
quietus make with a resignation letter?
But that dread of money lacking --
the unemployment lines from whose shadow
no ex-worker ever returns -- puzzles the will
and makes us bear the boss we have
rather than fly to others we know not of.

Thus, money doth make writers of us all,
and thus, the happy hue of resignation
is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of debt,
and enterprises of many pages and revisions
with this regard continue,
behind schedule and over budget.