His necktie acted as a valve
that kept the sadness bottled in.
from How I Met Your Mother by David Berman

White Collar Holler is a list of fiction dedicated to characters embroiled in the ennui, absurdity, hopelessness, or outright criminal activity of a faceless capitalist corporation or obstructionist government bureaucracy.

letterboxd.conexionsite.com/9413/list/skyscraper-i-love-you-urban-human-zoos/

Corporations have neither souls to be saved nor bodies to be kicked.

"The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from [businessmen] ought always to be listened to with great precaution and ought never be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of whose interest is never the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it." Adam Smith, 1776

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today." Theodore Roosevelt, 1912

In a simpler time, advertising merely called attention to the product and extolled its advantages. Now it manufactures a product of its own: the consumer, perpetually unsatisfied, restless, anxious, and bored. Its 'educates' the masses into an unappeasable appetite not only for goods but for new experiences and personal fulfillment. It upholds consumption as the answer to the age-old discontents of loneliness, sickness, weariness, lack of sexual satisfaction; at the same time it creates new forms of discontent peculiar to the modern age. It plays seductively to the malaise of industrial civilization. Is your job boring and meaningless? Is your life empty? Consumption promises to fill the aching void... — Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (1979)

Office Death

Two men wheel a stretcher in
to this room where the body lies,
where the body of our friend is waiting.

Fell off his chair
while working at his desk,
dead before he touched the floor.

Two men wheel the body out.
Then our routine resumes.
This afternoon there'll be
an extra work-load for some.

You try hard to be unmoved.
You tell yourself
people are dying like this
every minute of every day
every minute of every night.
You tell yourself you must be calm
so others will not be upset,
after all, this wasn't the first
heart attack he'd had.
You tell yourself
perhaps he's better off this way.
Still, you know you're lying.
Then a few tears come
in spite of everything.
But you're careful
not to take out your handkerchief
and nobody notices,
or at least
no-one seems to notice.

And with those few tears
comes the thought as well:
could I die like this,
and if I did
would it mean as little
to all these people
as this death seems to mean?
But you brush the thought aside
almost angrily at once
as not being fair,
as thoughtlessly cruel.
And yet, and yet
the nagging doubt remains,
eats away at you
every time you look over
at his cleared-off desk,
at his empty chair.

by Raymond Souster collected in Change-Up

Please, come back inside the window
I can't promise you anything, but I trust there is far
A greater reason to live
I know you've become disheartened and disillusioned by
The current state of affairs
Your stocks have fallen, your investments have failed
You
The man from whom you took orders has been ordered to
Jail by his and your subordinates
You question what is this world coming to
What is the profit margin when your forced to pander to
The marginalized
Where is the glory you dreamed of as a child
Dressed as a cowboy, your play that pointing gun at
Real targets
Your mother holding her tongue as your father consoles
You with the words
"It's just boy's stuff"
Well, you ed his fraternity
You grew into his old suits
You cried his beliefs
You embodied his dreams
And with them his oversights
How long did you think it would last?
It's just a matter of time
The world is far from over
Your mother outlives your father
Your sister outlives your mother
And if you jump from this window today
She'll also outlive you
Look at her
Sitting at her Midwestern home
Tunning on Oprah once again
Today she learns to meditate on this secondhand couch
Meanwhile, you stand outside this window, twelve
Stories above the ground
One story remaining untold
You contemplate the setting sun
I am aware of your disorientation
Dis-orient, turned away from the East
The shifting current seems to conspire against you
Mr Nichols, you've failed to see that you've always
Stood outside of this window, perched on the threshold
Of oblivion
Countless men made stories about the truth
For so long you've stood facing the setting sun
Mistaking the complementary unified duality of nature
As being right our wrong
Good or Evil
God or Devil
Mr Nichols, instead of stepping from this ledge into
The downfall of your up rise
Why not just turn around?
Lessen the intensity of your Western glare and face the
Rising sun
Note the energy swirling from it's center, how it
Illumines us all
And only the birds fly first class
There is your inheritance
The warmth of a kiss
Invest your tongue into the mouth of mystery
Allow her breath to seek into your lungs
Surrender to her touch and guidance
There is no other way
Your dreams of dominance will only help you forsake
Yourself
While your family continues it's search for
Understanding
And your daughters outlive your sons

This Woman’s Work