The other night I decided to hit a law school alumni happy hour. All the law schools hold affairs like these for “young alums” in the city; they typically involve showing up at X or Y Snooty University Club, locating the correct Events Room filled with fresh cut bouquets and portraits of dead white men, filling out a name tag, pasting on a smile and shmoozing heavily with other assholes who attended the same prestigious institution of legal education, while downing as many white wines and devilled eggs as humanly possible. Several of my friends were there, and we planted ourselves strategically equidistant from the bar and buffet table to observe the various lawyer greeting rituals in full display.
Suddenly I felt a tap on my arm, and turned to see a familiar face. It belonged to a former third-year associate I knew from my paralegal days, we worked at the same gulag firm before I headed to his alma mater for law school. While he was a potentially-forgettable prototypical uptight prissy lawyer, I’ll never forget him because of a particular incident. I was assisting him with exhibits for a brief, and he had asked me to come by his office and discuss the exhibit order. When I knocked on his office door, he wore what I now recognize immediately as the standard look of wild-eyed panic in apprehension of a partner’s imminent wrath. He was behind schedule on the brief, it was his fault, he knew it, and his proximate future held a full-scale verbal ass-whipping from the billing partner. I entered his office, pretending not to notice his hypertensive state complete with nervous twitching, and asked what he needed.
As he began dictating directions, his phone rang, and naturally he answered it - lawyers are physically incapable of ignoring a ringing phone, particularly while a subordinate is standing at attention awaiting instructions. The temptation to remind an underling of his or her place in the greater scheme, as well as the inability to brush off a potentially billable call simply for the sake of politeness to coworkers, is simply too powerful. I’ve learned to amuse myself while various partners gab away by staring at their displayed framed portraits of younger blonde spouses, stately sailboats or family photos from their son’s bar mitzvah reception at Jean Georges, and wondering whether these smiling children in the photos want to smack their father upside the head as much as I do. But on this occasion, I was still a green paralegal, so I sat in a chair, lowered my head, and pretended to make notes in my legal pad while he conversed.
“Hello? Yes, this is [Joe Lawyer]. Who am I speaking to? Oh right, yes I had my secretary call about that yesterday, I need the diploma framed and ready for pickup by Thursday.”
I sighed, settled into my chair for a long wait, and commenced doodling stick figures splayed in crude guillotines on the bottom of the page.
(Raising his voice) “Well that’s not what I was told! My secretary told me you said Thursday when she dropped the damn thing off!”
Uh, ok, I guess he really needs his diploma for some indeterminate reason. I kept my head down and pretended he wasn’t acting like a mildly-deranged asshole.
“You said Thursday, so I want it Thursday.” (face begins turning Nyquil-red, eyes grow large and white) No, that is not fucking acceptable! I want a manager on this phone NOW! Well there better be someone other than you there, you fucking bitch!”
By now I’m slightly alarmed and wondering whether I should just get up and book it out of his office before he bursts a blood vessel and starts hurling bookends in my general direction.
(Escalating to high-pitched screaming) “Fuck you you fucking idiot!! You people are fucking incompetent! Get it done by Thursday or I swear to God I’ll have you fucking fired!” (slams down the phone).
I’m cowering speechless and unmoving in my chair, praying for escape, desperately trying to mask my fear of being confined in a small space with this obvious sociopath. While I have no doubt that everyone in the vicinity heard his shrieked profanities, no one knocked or checked in to see if any blood or major internal organs had been spilled. Finally, he slammed down the phone, turned his back to me, took a few breaths, and then began speaking as if nothing had happened.
A few months later, after his projects had continually dominated my time, I asked him to write a quick recommendation to his alma mater on my behalf, since it was my first choice law school. He agreed to write it, so I produced forms, stamped envelopes, resumes and transcripts to provide him with sufficient information. Three months later, I called the Admissions Office to see if they had received his letter, only to find that none had been sent. When I hesitantly asked him about it, he shrugged me off, replying flippantly, “Oh, right. I just never got around to it. I’m not going to have time.”
And now here we are, standing by the shrimp cocktail and cheese puffs, displaying septic smiles and making pasteurized smalltalk, and he’s handing me his card and inquiring whether I’d like to do lunch sometime to hear all about his new in-house position. Of course, I see how it works, we’re both lawyers now, I’ve climbed up a trophic level in the food chain, from mere detritus to worker ant in the New York legal ecosystem, and now I’m worthy of basic civility. I took his card, smiled, turned away and ripped it in half.