an open letter to one-year-from-now s

dear s,

i hear that first year associates find themselves doing a number of fairly menial tasks: days of document review, maybe researching contract law in minnesota (again), and of course the document review. maybe you're in the middle of some massive document review right now, maybe you've just finished your third red bull, and maybe your head hurts and your fingers are covered in papercuts. maybe your blackberry won't stop buzzing.

i just wanted to take the time to remind you, future s, that back when you still answered phones and made copies to work your way through school, you couldn't wait to do those things. this s can't wait to have a little ounce of responsibility. this s can't wait to be able to take more than 30 minutes and 15 seconds for lunch, and not have to call ahead and apologize if public transportation is going to deliver her to the office at 9:03. this s can't wait to not share a cubicle and to be able to answer her personal cell between the hours of 9am and 5pm.

but most of all, this s can't wait to never, ever again be assigned the urgent, high priority task of unstapling seven small packets of paper and returning them to her supervisor.

although to be fair, future s, you and i both know how satisfying the supervisor's stomp was after he realized that the used staples from the urgently needed-to-be-unstapled packets were all piled neatly on top of those papers in his inbox.

there's something delicious about passive aggressiveness, and you just might miss it.