:: Dictated But Not Read ::
Musings from the ''Miracle Girl''| [::..archive..::] |
|---|
| Things That Have Been Said About Me |
| You are the Minx. |
| She plays taller than her height. |
| You have a refreshing attitude. |
| You're such a renaissance woman. |
| She's not much of a biller. |
| You are very angry. |
| You are so self aware. |
| You need a more sophisticated haircut. |
| You are not afraid of anything. |
| You have a great attitude. |
| Your life is like a Seinfeld episode. |
| You are winsome. |
| You look great in hats. |
| Miracle girl. |
| I am belligerently conciliatory. |
| You've got it big time. |
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Quotes from the Week Gone ByMy mother: “Are you trying to tell me you’re gay?”
Me: “I think I might be pregnant.”
My mother: “Are you pregnant with an older man’s child? You know that’s fine now but in ten years…”
Me: “I really think I might be pregnant”
My boss: “We have a meeting about your partnership next week.”
Me: “I don’t think you will ever find me naked on a beach, even at my goal weight.”
Me: “You know I’ll have to do another one of these tests Sunday. There are a lot of early false negatives.”
D.B.N.R.
Monday, September 01, 2003
Breast ManWhen I first started working at my law firm I was quite the team player. I mistakenly believed that the firm’s fate and mine were intricately connected. It was my first job at a larger organization. A few months after I started work the first crop of summer interns arrived and with them came endless happy hours, baseball games, and other group activities. I had been advised these events were a good way to get to know other lawyers in the firm and so I frequently found myself drinking a beer at a happy hour before rushing back up to my office to bill a couple of more hours. It was at one of those happy hours that I had my encounter with the partner I now refer to as the Breast Man. He is a youngish partner in the firm and I knew him. I had interviewed him and had worked with him. He practices tax law and estate law. My divorce clients frequently need assistance in both areas. The breast man, a couple of male summer interns and I were sitting at an outdoor table at a happy hour. As we were sitting there a woman with large breasts walked by the bar on the street. The breast man commented on the large size of her breasts and then proceeded to talk about other women with large breasts he had seen and discussed with his teenage son. After about five minutes he looked at me and said, “Am I making you uncomfortable?” I responded with the insipid statement that I was not uncomfortable but that he was offending me. He didn’t stop there. Before he left the bar he went to the bathroom and brought back an advertisement for a local strip club and handed it to me. In my continuing stupidity I decided that though I could care less what this moron did or said to me, I was worried about his potential impact on the firm. He spent a lot of time with summer interns. What if he offended a summer intern and she reacted and then she did not get a job? So, unwisely, I went to my female boss and told her about what had happened. A few facts were unknown to me. First, this sort of thing is not done. Second, my boss has less than no political acumen and no clout in the firm. Third, my boss had lost 2 young female associates to actual sexual harassment by a partner who has since left the firm. She did the unthinkable. She picked up the phone and called the very conservative managing partner. His solution to the problem was to force the breast man to apologize to me. It was the single most uncomfortable, unnecessary, work place experience I have ever had. He was not sorry and I didn’t care if he was. Both of these were readily ascertained by our conversation. He said, “I am sorry if I offended you.” I said nothing. He noted that we would have to continue working together and that he was able to do that if I was. I smiled and nodded enthusiastically and that was the end of it. We do work together frequently because we have to. The firm was clearly nonplused by the breast incident because the very next summer he was the partner in charge of the summer interns. I do not often think about the breast incident because it is mostly a reminder of my inability to understand politics and how to act appropriately. But the other day it came back to me. The breast man and I are serving on the firm’s recruiting committee this year. I am vigilant about not allowing apathetic candidates into the firm on the basis of good academic performance alone. I made my reputation known at the first meeting last week. My opinions were not noteworthy among the committee and I did not talk more than anyone else. The only thing that was noteworthy was my gender and perhaps that I am able to deliver some biting remarks with a smile on my face. At the end of the meeting, one of the partners said, to no one in particular, “It’s good to have someone like Margot on the committee. She does not just like every candidate.” A couple of other people felt the need to comment on my comments. The breast man leaned over to the person next to him, after one of my more cutting comments and said loudly while looking at me, “Wouldn’t you hate to be on her bad side?” I was tempted to lean across the large conference table and say, “You are”, but I suspect he knows and there is some small satisfaction in that.
D.B.N.R.
