Climbing up the corporate ladder
Part of working in an office is respecting, or at the very least recognizing, the hierarchy of the workplace. Especially as a young person trying to climb the corporate ladder, you must check your ego at the door and accept your role and your responsibilities, no matter how ignoble they may be.
In some professions, these entry-level positions are temporary — means to a (fingers crossed) lucrative end. In the law world, however, these class differences between the educated and the help are more defined and tend to stay that way.
Chances are the secretary making an hourly wage will never become the managing partner with a six-figure salary. And Human Resources tries its darndest to make sure you don’t forget that.
But even after you’ve come to terms with your less-than-desirable standing, it still stings to be left out of things just because you don’t have a Yale Law School Juris Doctor certificate hanging in your office.
It’s easy to see why the secretaries and paralegals wouldn’t be invited to lunch with a client or a hiring committee meeting. But it’s exclusion from the off-the-clock get-togethers that creates an obvious and sometimes offensive divide between attorneys and the administrative staff and assistants.
For instance, the opportunity to participate in my law firm’s book club was contingent on an employee’s rank. Human Resources would distribute that month’s reading material to any and all attorneys, even those quite undeserving of their “esquire” title. Apparently, not attending law school is the leading indicator of illiteracy. Who knew skimming a book and then talking about it for 15 minutes over a super-sized carafe of wine was a skill exclusive to those who can define “ignorantia juris non excusat?”
Other office get-togethers such as lunchtime baby showers served as added reminders of the firm’s rigid pecking order. When a pregnant attorney approached her due date, the whole office was expected to attend the shower and “ooh” and “ahh” as she opened one onesie after another.
But when a member of the support staff had a baby on the way, only fellow members of the firm’s proletariat were on the guest list. With no attorneys in attendance, an odd double standard emerged, begging the question: are babies with Ivy League legacy inherently more deserving of celebration than offspring with cubicle-dwelling ancestry?
But the worst of these hierarchy-related offenses took place last summer in regard to an attorney-client softball game in which the attorneys engaged in some friendly, debatably athletic, competition with the employees of a local insurance company.
From the get go, the support staff members felt slighted when they were invited to attend the ball game provided that they stayed in the bleachers like dutiful spectators, cheering on the very men and women that pile paperwork on their desks and reprimand their every oversight.
Nevertheless, many of these secretaries were good sports about it and had no problem doing what the support staff does best: supporting co-workers.
Turns out, the game was rained out and postponed, though no one bothered to mention this to the secretaries who were still planning on attending.
When the game was finally rescheduled, Human Resources failed to notify the secretaries with so much as a brief email.
But even without a formal invitation, the secretaries knew the game was on when attorneys decked out in Mets and Yankees baseball caps headed out of the office early in awkward leisure attire carrying coolers of beer.
The divide between the high- and low-ranking employees in any office can cause feelings of deflated self-worth in even the most confident of people. Although these distinctions can spark inferiority complexes, sometimes maintaining this line between the “help” and the management is crucial to maintaining order.
When you’re working in a professional environment, you are expected to have a good rapport with your superiors, but it should never be so close that co-workers start referring to you as the next Paris and Nicole (circa 2003, of course). It is Human Resources’ duty to distinguish between the secretaries and the attorneys, the assistants and the agents, and the nurses and the doctors, in order to build an office hierarchy that breeds respect.
In the case of separate vs. equal, it is the judgment of this columnist that you should be sentenced to a lifetime of spotty employment should you expect equal opportunity rather than accept your underappreciated position.
Kelsey Borresen is a junior majoring in print journalism. Her column, “Laugh-Idavit,” runs Mondays.