Aric Press, the editor of the American Lawyer, has told me that he believes that large law firms are prone to breeding and encouraging demeaning behavior. He wrote an editorial about this problem when my Harvard Business Review essay on the rule came out in 2004 and printed a long excerpt from the book in the American Lawyer. Of course, law firms aren’t the only places that can turn nasty — in fact, there is a lot of evidence that nurses, medical students, and residents face especially persistent abuse — but this report from a legal secretary at a large law firm really caught my attention. I have removed the opening and ending, and of course, her name, but edited nothing else:
I am a legal secretary who has
worked with countless assholes my entire working life. Attorneys, upper management and even staff and
secretaries who demean and poison the workplace with their vindictiveness,
competitiveness and general lack of respect for others. I have found that management’s "solution" to
dealing with these types of people is that YOU must tip toe around them because
" … well, you know how he/she
is". Now how much sense does that
make?! I wish I had the money to
purchase hundreds of copies of your book, along with your "asshole
quiz" and send them, (anonymously of course!), to every asshole I’ve ever
worked with – like the partner I’ve worked with who never ever looks at me,
speaks to me or acknowledges that I exist.
I HATE this asshole. Or the attorney who wishes I
could "meet his needs better" when he NEVER communicates with me at
all. Or the female attorney who will rips me to shreds when the
printer malfunctions but expects humor and compassion when she makes a mistake
of her own or the bullying senior partner who gets away with making mincemeat
out of underlings by screaming and hollering at them because he/she brings in
so much business for the firm. It’s
sick.
The damage done is scary. One of the main things I’ve learned since publishing the book is that organizations would be wise to devote less energy to fighting the war for talent and more energy to finding ways to avoid wasting and ruining the talent that they already have.
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