PAD Day 8: On Golden Years and Hackers

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "lucky numbers" poem, and (2) write a poem that uses work jargon. So here is my result:

Social Security

Where I worked, we gave out money -

money that people earned, that is,

over the years from payroll deductions,

to set them up for retirement.

We had our own jargon, of course:

PIA meant Primary Insurance Amount,

the basic full retirement rate.

Sometimes we also used that acronym

to describe a difficult client -

you can probably figure out what it stood for.

But all in all, we cared about people,

and generally, they liked us too,

because we helped launch their golden years.

Some of them felt like their nine digits

were lucky numbers, like they hit the lottery.

But some were disappointed, too.

It was my job for thirty-eight years,

giving them the benefits they deserved,

and now I'm golden like them.

I haven't hit the lottery, so I still play it weekly,

watch my grandchildren,

and try my best not to be a PIA.

I wrote a poem before that one, just in response to the Poetic Asides prompt, and on a more dire note, in a haiku/senryu form:

The Lottery

My lucky numbers?

Well, I've got a lot of them -

they're nine digits long

and you all got them

from Social Security -

have a real nice day.


[P.S.: This poem is in the voice of a hacker - it in no way is meant to imply that I ever stole people's social security numbers when I did my job. I just noticed the inference when the two poems are linked. Rest assured I was an honest civil servant!]