THE LAST STRAW

I graduated from law school a year ago today. A month before graduation, I landed a job as an associate at a medium-sized firm with a great reputation and a very competitive salary. The competition to get an associate position had been fierce so when I got in it felt awesome. I felt triumphant and that I was where I belonged. I was proud that all of my hard work had paid off but I always knew that it would. I had already known for years that it was my destiny to become a highly successful attorney.

For the past two months I worked with a partner who had just come back from maternity leave when we started working together. She was a decent enough looking woman in her early fifties who had clearly given up everything to work her way up to partner in the firm and then decided to have a child. At our first meeting she told me how she had heard great things about me and was looking forward to working with me and that she thought I was definitely partnership material if I worked hard enough, long enough, etc.

Things were going great until one day she went crazy over a misunderstanding about an assignment. We’d agreed in advance that I needed another day to complete it. At the time it wasn't a big deal but when I didn't turn it in on the earlier date, she came storming into my office yelling about how incompetent I was and how I was such a loser and I’d never make it far at the firm. She wagged her head wildly as she barked words at me, whipping her faded medusa-like blond hair around. Needless to say I was shocked to the point of speechlessness. When I didn’t respond to her, she approached my desk and banged on it with clenched fists and demanded an explanation for why the assignment was late. I reminded her about our agreement but she denied remembering it and called me a liar. She continued to hurl insults and and expletives at me rapid-fire, spraying drops of spittle acriss my face.

Then, when I thought her rant was finally coming to an end she straightened up and very calmly stated, “You’re getting a time-out!” What? Had I heard this woman right? As if she could hear my mental question she repeated, this time louder and more angrily, “Time out!” She stood there hovering over me sneering, her face within inches of mine, an out stretched arm pointing commandingly toward the door. Strangely I couldn’t help but focus on the gelatinous sheet of flesh hanging off of her arm waiving at me as she indicated my fate. She banished me to the library demanding that I stay there until I could understand the importance of timeliness to the proper functioning of the firm.

That was the last straw. I quit the firm. So now I’m unemployed.