Trip report: fight in Internet cafe

[luckyjimm]

[ QUOTE ]
jimm - do the lawyers socialize much with the secretaries? Do you feel they look down on them much?

[/ QUOTE ]


No - never, ever.

Yes, a lot.

I spent six months there as a temp secretary, then came back two months later to work in the word processing department. I am a complete anomaly, having pretty much the education of the lawyers (though I'm from a more middle-class background) but, seemingly, so little ambition I'm happy to do a school leaver's job. So they don't know what to make of me.

The other day in the street outside, I walked past one of the guys I used to work for. Out of politeness I nodded hello, and while doing so, as you do, looked him in the eye. He didn't nod back, didn't smile, didn't alter his expression a fraction. He just carried on walking like I wasn't there. He was one of four lawyers I worked for and he never gave me any work to do, he was self-sufficient - for which I was grateful - but WOW at being cut dead like that. While I worked for him we were both smokers, and we'd see each other several times a day in the courtyard where the smokers were, but when he saw me there he'd always walk ten metres further down. Sometimes we found ourselves walking back at the same time and went up together in the lift in silence!

Since I work an afternoon/evening shift there now, I eat my evening meal there. A lot of the lawyers will be in the canteen when I go in around 7.30pm, guys I used to work for. But I'd never dream of sitting with them - I'm just not interested in them. I'd rather wolf down my food and read the paper, than try hard to find some common ground with this alien species.

I also don't feel comfortable taking orders from young guys, guys younger than me. It makes me aware of my complete lack of status.

Ah, [censored] it - it's about personalities. I worked for the head of department, an equity partner who gets paid £1 million+ a year. When I left, she took me for lunch to a little Italian place I'd told her was good, and she said to me "So what happened?" - as in, what was a guy like me - she was very astute at judging people by appearances - doing in a job like that? She told me I was too good to be a secretary at that firm, and implored me to get a proper career path. Even though she is super-busy, she is very sharp, shrewd, and observant. I felt very flattered, even if I wasn't able to take her advice.

Some of the other lawyers were also very friendly, once I got them talking. I sat amongst them at a couple of firm social lunches and we talked the whole way through. But I think they are people who have spent their whole lives in institutions with rigid hierarchies - a lot of them are ex-army, too - and they like using their perceived status to snub those "beneath" them.

There's an inverse snobbery, too, of course. You can be sure the mailroom guys look down on the lawyers. And the secretaries look down on the junior lawyers, who for just twice their salary work three times the hours.