Congratulations! You’re Average – By Niranjan Selvadurai
Source : Dæhæna – September 2026
Congratulations! You’re average.
Please wear your badge with quiet grace.
You fit neatly within the Bell curve’s cage
No questions, please; just run the race.
You solved the tasks foreseen by none,
Stayed late beneath a fading sun.
Yet charts decree that someone falls;
The figures whisper you’re the one.
“Work as one team,” the posters tweet.
“Collaboration wins the day!”
Then comes the ranking, cold and neat:
“Please outperform your peers today.”
The dreamer who imagined more,
The mentor lifting others high,
The patient soul who stilled the roar—
The curve absorbs them all. They qualify…For average
The bell is fair—or so they say.
It never laughs. It never grieves.
It trims the tallest trees away
Until the forest all believes.
“We value every voice,” they claim.
“We cherish every different mind.”
Yet every gifted soul they tame
To fit a mould—pre‑drawn, defined.
The meeting ends. The charts applaud.
The colours glow in perfect green.
A masterpiece of management—
No sign of humans in the machine.
So here’s your certificate at last:
Congratulations! You’re average.
Now kindly teach the rest of us
How uniqueness became a percentage!
Niranjan Selvadurai
About this poem:
This is a satire on the contradictions of modern workplace culture. It explores the tension between celebrating individuality, creativity, and collaboration while evaluating people through standardised rankings and performance metrics.
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