The Smiths' "Frankly Mr. Shankly"
A delightfully forward "fuck you, I quit" statement to the boss, sung with Morrissey's usual brilliant sarcasm. Does your job "corrode your soul" too? Then maybe you should follow suit and tell your own personal Mr. Shankly that he or she is a "flatulent pain in the arse" as well. That oughta take care of things for you.

Dead Kennedys' "At My Job"
This one is pretty straightforward. A pissed off little homage to rules, time cards, and the purely thrilling joy of realising that in the eyes of your employer, you are not actually a name -- you are only a number. Jello then provides you with ammunition for that moment when you finally decide that you've had enough of the abuse, and gives you the flame-thrower with which to deliver your two-weeks notice in "Take This Job And Shove It".

Paul Westerberg's "Bad Worker"
This is a practically unknown little demo recorded at home in the early '80s. It's a theme song for everyone who loves to piss away their chances of being promoted by acting like a complete slacker: "I'll give you minimum effort for a minimum wage." Now that's the right attitude. This little song could also serve as a guide to keeping yourself happy while being forced to do a load of crap busywork: "Well I drank a cup of coffee and I read a magazine, looking for the boss who was nowhere to be seen." Either way, Westerberg assures us that he'll take care of the problem: "Vote for me, and... maybe (I'll) lay everybody off." Sounds good to me.

We Ragazzi's "Why Does The World Have To Modernize?"
Another damn good question. Anthony Rolando is a little bit peeved -- all this "progress" is grinding his life away, and ultimately, it's starting to interfere with his attempts to get busy with his girl. When work starts to affect your sex life, it's time to rethink your priorities. The world can go modernize all it wants -- Rolando isn't buying into it. Good man.

The International Noise Conspiracy's "Abolish Work"
Basically, a call to do what must be done if the human race is to survive as sane beings. "We must erase the timeline please...or we will end up dying on our bare knees...we must abolish work, not just another cheap cliché, just another trick to make the workers pay." It's a dire state of affairs, and something needs to be done about it. Well said.

The Ramones' "The Job That Ate My Brain"
The harried commute, the irritating boss, the crazy pace of office life -- if the job ate Joey's brain, what the hell is it going to do to me?

Lou Reed's "Don't Talk To Me About Work"
I can't tell you how many times I've had to say that to people. Do you really want to discuss hell once you've escaped from it? Raises the essential question: "How many liars, how many tales, how many insults must you take in this one life?" Also serves as a flawless description of how a perfectly good day can be ruined by your job. "A perfect day to get out of bed...then I hit the office and my head starts to swim...a perfect day to just walk around...but even on the street, when I hear a phone ring my heart starts to beat..." You have to love it when your down time is destroyed by the lingering remnants of the workday.

Sugar's "Company Book"
An anthem prescribing the self-destruction of the prototypical yes man. In the last stanza, the company man "decrees (the) extinction of faceless robots like himself." In short, a fantasy come true for the worthless office underling.

Blur's "Yuko & Hiro"
A weird little ditty about two people who work six days a week, drink to numb the pain, and only see each other on Sundays. A very accurate take on the depressing reality of living a life determined by the workweek.

Radiohead's "Fitter, Happier, More Productive"
The ultimate instruction manual for the slave race. A disturbing robotic taskmaster gives us a blueprint for a proper attitude and a list of lifestyle tips needed for making peace with the dullest aspects of existence: "Regular exercise at the gym...getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries...a patient better driver...will frequently check credit...(pragmatism not idealism)." But what do we become with all this well-meaning advice? "A pig, in a cage, on antibiotics." The moral of the story? You can run, but you cannot escape.

LandSpeedRecord!'s "Interoffice Copulation"
A little masterpiece from their second album The Corporate Secret. This song doesn't really have anything to do with hating your job, but it provides a shining example of the frightening humor that arises from spending too much time in an office. If you are suffering from similar symptoms -- licking your co-workers' nameplates, convincing your cubicle neighbours to get naked on the copy machine, or attempting to breed a new species by having an inappropriate relationship with the fax machine -- you may want to consider quitting and getting some help, because your job has seriously damaged your brain. (And by the way, The Corporate Secret is this: You're fucking fired).