"It's important to have a job that makes a difference, boys. That's why I manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination."

- Clerks (2000)

"Fuck her in the ass... eat a little pusss-seee... yeeehh yeaaahh, you motherfuckers..." The sound of screeching, distorted off tune guitar and cymbals smashing blared from the living room. The stereo alarm had cued up a horrible bootleg of Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Miles and Jim Morrison jamming drunk at some New York nightclub in 1969. Hendrix struggled through "Tomorrow Never Knows," Miles fell into the drumset and Morrison screamed profanities at the audience. The reverb pierced the sound of traffic outside, shaking the window in my bedroom. The bootleg has no musical value; strictly a novelty item. I couldn't recall fishing it out the cd rack or putting it in the carousel, which seemed about right. Nobody remembers putting something like that in the disc changer.

The apartment was a war zone - nitrous canisters strewn about the floor like spent shell casings, half drunk Budweiser cans on every surface, busted day glo rubber balloons scattered about the couch, a dusting of ashes across the coffee table and a water pipe spilled on the oriental rug. The place reeked like a fraternity basement - stale smoke and skunked beer.

I checked the answering machine. "________, this is Bronwyn in human resources. Please see me when you get in." Last day... I had to clean out my desk. "Shit." My initial thought was panic. How would I pack my office? Had I erased all my emails? But then, who cared? I'd be throwing away 99 percent of it. There was nothing on my walls. I'd left my diploma at my first firm. I had no plants, pictures of family or accountant's lamps with a college or law school crest on the shade. There'd be no personal remnant of me but a collection of porn images on my desktop and thousands of emails full of Norm McDonald quotes. The panic was all instinct. When you toil 9 to 5 for a few years you get institutionalized... you develop an immediate fear any time you're outside The Schedule. I'd been deleting my Give a Shit software for months and yet, my first response to a call from the office - from a firm I was leaving - was Pavlovian... Still a monkey in a fez, dancing for the accordian.

"Getting sober" is impossible. There's nothing you can due to avoid the effects of consumption except wait for the body to work out the toxins. I've tried hitting the gym, cold showers, steam rooms, mass-dosing with B-12 and drinking a gallon of water before going to sleep. It helps, but none of it erases the pain of the body struggling to pump out pints of innard-rotting poison. You can brush your teeth, wash your hair and slap on a bottle of cologne - all you'll affect is a fresh smelling drunk. I brushed my teeth three times, drank three coffees, threw Visine in my eyes and gargled with half a bottle of Scope. No matter what I did, the metallic taste of the laughing gas stayed in my mouth. I doused my head under a freezing cold shower, but the bloating didn't go down a millimeter... Pie-faced, my eye sockets, nose and cheeks were flushed and puffy. When I looked down or sideways, I could see the swollen skin around my eyes framing my plane of view. I sprayed myself with every bottle of deodorant, musk and even some of Lisa's perfume. It was no use. No matter how I stunk outwardly, all I could smell was smoke and sour bourbon vapors lingering in my throat.

I tried to read a paper in the cab to the office. The lines of the OpEds rolled through my head but the words made no sense. Typical Times bullshit; Paul Krugman raving about inequity. Too dense - I threw it in the bag. The cab dropped my carcass at the office.

"Should have shaved." My reflection in the lobby door was seedy. The two day scruff was molding into a dingy early beard. Fuck it. Bronwyn didn't care about my appearance. She was HR; she followed directives, period. I could've shown up nude or dressed in an SS uniform. I could have told I was late because I'd been up late whipping sex slaves in my basement or testing homemade surface to air missiles. She was single minded. HR's an amusing world... little wind up toys - point them in one direction and set them loose. They follow orders, never deviating, unless something gets in the way, at which point, unable to contemplate changing direction, they keep banging up against the issue... "The handbook says this doesn't happen." If you email them a question, they'll return it with a memo explaining why you'll need to ask someone else. "I'm sorry, you'll have to refer that question to _______, who handles those matters." Endless explanations about why the person you asked for advice either doesn't know or isn't responsible for writing or implementing the policy about which you're inquiring. In firms all over the country collections of round little women write these emails all day long at $40k a head. I like to picture them stomping around, singing and bouncing off one another. "Oompa loompa / Doom-pa-dee-dee / If you want an answer / Don't ask me..."

"Margaret will call you regarding the exit interview."

"Exit interview?"

"Exit interview. You're leaving." Bronwyn turned and headed for her desk, to write a memo confirming she'd completed her task.

Margaret was the head of HR. She was a 50ish matronly woman who spoke in a high-pitched Mary Poppins tone. You couldn't miss Margaret; she always wore bizarre, brightly colored clothing and huge pieces of jewelry. When she had the right color schemes going, she was a walking Christmas tree. The few times we met, she was outfitted in a shocking red jacket, with a huge gold and jewel encrusted broach or pin stapled above one of her breasts. I figured she was in a General Cornwallis phase.

Margaret was Queen Bureaucrat of the firm. She acted as a witness whenever people were fired... to make sure all internal policies and procedures were followed. If you saw her milling about your floor, some poor secretary was getting shitcanned. Every so often, she'd send an email discussing a new policy on sexual harassment or a capsule summary of some candidate we had to interview:

"Chad is a 1996 graduate of Villanova, with an impressive resume. He's an ambitious young lawyer with an outstanding background, and comes to us highly recommended by Professor Fistlewaite, a foremost speaker on discrimination issues. Chad edited the Environmental Law Quarterly and Sports Law Review."

It was odd Margaret, or any HR person for that matter, would filter resumes. She was a middle aged middle manager in a non-revenue producing department. Margaret only existed as a bullwark against employment and discrimination suits. Margaret was here because in Philadelphia, every third worker's a gestating lawsuit. Why she tried so hard I'll never understand; all she really had to do was take notes. She reminded me of that high school guidance counselor who dressed to the nines and spoke like Gore Vidal... Why?

I met Margaret in a small conference room on the ___ floor. It was small and far too bright. Margaret was wearing shocking red lipstick and, against her ashen white complexion, highlighted in the unforgiving iridescent lights, she looked like Nicholson's Joker. As soon as I entered, she started with the Saccharine. "Hello, _________, good to see you." I eased into my seat across the conference table. My immediate inclination was to scream. "Margaret, turn your jacket off!" It was like being interrogated by a rodeo clown. "And turn down these goddamned flickering lights!" I felt like I was having a seizure. "Please, please get me a beer. I'll wax your car, clean your house... I'll make love to you missionary... We'll cuddle... just a beer..." Delirium tremens were setting in - the room was listing slightly, my hands clammy - the usual hot and cold flashes and loss of equilibrium. I was certain I'd never make it through the interview. Steady. Breathe. Steady...

Law firm job interviews are "White Album" length lies, forced sales pitches for a thing nobody really wants. I mean, people want the salary. They want the benefits and they want the opportunity. But all the back and forth about "firm culture," "goals," and "how [insert firm here] is 'different' or 'better'" is white noise - a candidate and an interviewee ping-ponging dreck back and forth over a cherry wood table. I used to have anxiety attacks during these volleys. Not the usual panic attacks people relate... My heart didn't race. I didn't need to breath into a paper bag. I didn't have a sudden urge to shit or double vision. Mine were battles to keep control of my mouth, to avoid shouting at the suit across from me to stanch the river of slogans and corporate buzzwords filling the room. I'd breathe deep and stare into the eyes of whatever lawyer was talking. I'd nod, smile, scratch my chin - give off any pantomime of interest to hide the fact that I was barely holding myself back from standing, jumping out of character and barking at the collected bald heads like Mick Jagger's deranged gangster in the "Memo From Turner" scene of "Performance"...

"Enough with the 'fit' and 'culture' and 'where the firm will be in five years' stuff. I only asked questions about those things because it's just common sense one should pretend to give a damn about his employer's future. But let's get down to brass tacks... I'm like everybody else. I don't want to be here. Neither do you. I want money. You want to pay me as little as possible. So what's the number? What are you going to cough and what's the bonus structure? The rest's nonsense."

I haven't been anxious during an interview in years. After a dozen or so, you learn to say Nothing with authority. Nothing's ideal; Something's problematic; Anything's death. Nothing offends nobody, and there's no follow up. Something's got substance and begs a question, which eventually leads to you admitting you don't know what you're talking about. Anything's what a fool spouts in a pregnant pause - fragments of phrases he thinks better of speaking a couple words in, canned questions from career guides, Dale Carnegie sales lingo... All of them are Doom; Anything sits in the air like a fresh wet fart. Nobody can look its speaker in the eye. Once you've given up trying to say Something and learned to avoid the impulse to say Anything, you can get through any interview. I try to smile and nod as much as possible. When I think I've got a point to make, I remember what a girl told me in a bar years ago - "It's a shame you can talk."

I smiled at Margaret and took my seat. "So why are you leaving?"

My eyes darted around the walls for a second. A stream of thoughts, some coherent, some gibberish, logjammed between my eyes. My mind flew to my senses, to process anything but the rush of clogged disparate responses. The room went Arctic cold. Lines of sweat rolled down my torso. I smelled Lisa's suddenly pungent perfume, climbing over the Right Guard, Scope, Certs and coffee breath competing for my nose's attention. I was a rose bush.

"Well..." The smoke, gas and whiskey had seared my voice to something between Peter Faulk and Louis Armstrong. Occasionally, my vocal cords gave up altogether, leaving me with a Screech crackle. "I'm leaving because I just felt a change was good at this point in my career and wah wah wah waaah wahh." Then it struck me; I could say anything. "But those aren't the real reasons."

To be continued later this week...

Posted by PhilaLawyer at 2:07 AM

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