XO Sauce,
Last Day at the Office Emails
Happy Halloween!
XO Sauce,
Last Day at the Office Emails
The Male Beta Associate: Soft Hands, Hard Life
1. Soft hands. Have you ever reached out to shake hands with a man, and got caught off guard by how soft his hand was? Kind of like how you would imagine Pop 'n Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy's hand to be? That man is an MBA.
2. Did not go to a great law school. Because if he did, he would use his prestigious law school to redeem his entire self-worth, which would make him an as*hole, and MBAs are not as*holes.
3. Is always wearing that buttery soft leather bomber jacket that makes him look like a sofa. It's too big, it looks literally like a poop, and it smells like a taxi.
4. Wilts in social situations. Such as seeing someone walking towards him from the other end of a long hallway, and not knowing where to put his eyes/hands/mind/tongue for the duration of that long walk towards this other living being. After the two pass by each other the MBA feels relief/shame/exhilaration/movement.
5. Asian flush. He's not even asian (because really how many male asian lawyers are there) but he still has their disease. When he drinks, his face takes on a tender pink hue, like the inside of a magnificent conch. Press his face up to your ear, and you will hear what sounds like the beckoning of a trio of sea sirens, but really it's just him drunkenly murmuring, "Closer, closer, oh closer still."
6. Pear shaped. He doesn't start out this way, of course. During orientation, he was uniformly oblong, with soft sloping shoulders. But by his third year of sitting at his desk, his lower body, given the freedom to roam in the dark wilderness under his desk, expands. Timidly reaching, reaching just a little bit further, an inch at a time, building soft little outposts of tissue around his hips until one fine wintery day, as he is making his way through Times Square to his Hell's Kitchen studio, a wannabe stand-up comedian shouts to him from behind, "Hey lady, ya like comedy?"
7. And here is his departure email (I'll point out the MBA behavior in paren):
From: XXXX
Sent: Friday, XXXX, 2005 3:56 PM
To: All NY
Subject: My Departure
Today is my last day at XXXX. As at least some of you know (Everyone knows the departure email template is "As most of you know," but the MBA is so unsure of himself that he needs to tinker with precedent, to reduce its strength so that there is no way he could accidentally perjure himself with too much self-assurance... this is also why your legal research never excites the partners, MBA!), I'm going to be practicing plaintiff's side personal injury law at XXXX, a ten lawyer firm (MBAs never know which details are impressive, which ones make you sound like a lame young brother tagging along) started by my grandfather. (MBAs are not very professionally mobile because they are horrible at interviews; working for the family business solves that problem.) I've been privileged during my time here to work with a number of really outstanding lawyers and paralegals, and to make some terrific friends. Thank you all for a great experience.
Please feel free to contact me at (He doesn't say "keep in touch" because he's never been.):
XXXX@gmail.com
(646) XXX-XXXX
I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
-- XXXX
Can You Tell That This Email is a Thinly Veiled F*ck-You?
Only those who have suffered the indignity of shivering on the empty late-night streets of midtown, a redwell full of fresh-from-the-printer documents held close to the chest as the only source of heat, brought along more to assuage the anxiety of leaving the office "earlier than usual" than to be completed at home, waiting for a Town Car for so long that the car number has been forgotten, and when three show up all at once, opening the door of each car and being greeted by strong wafts of aftershave, street food, or worse, and timidly, almost tenderly, stating your last name with a hopeful upwards intonation --only this echelon of fine wasted potential will be able to read between the lines of a placid, prosaic farewell email such as the one below, and see the fiery five-hour-energy-red rage beneath the text, lurking in arial's curves and hiding behind those fine times new roman serifs.
HERE is the real email with only the parts that were typed aloud:
From: XXXX
Sent: Friday, XXXX, 2005 1:28 PM
To: All NY
Subject: My Departure
Today is my last day at XXXX. As of January 2, I will be an associate in the XXXX practice at XXXX. My time here has been brief but memorable. I have learned so much and feel privileged to have worked beside so many wonderful and intelligent people. The friends I have made and the colleagues I have learned from have made my experience here both meaningful and enjoyable.
Best wishes for a safe and happy new year,
XXXX
Please keep in touch.
XXXX@hotmail.com
__________________________________________________________________________
HERE is the email with the parts that were typed in our writer's head added in blue:
From: XXXX
Sent: Friday, XXXX, 2005 1:28 PM
To: All NY
Subject: My Departure, Y'All!
Today is my last f*cking day at XXXX. As of January 2 (You know what this means, right? It means I get to have a real holiday, the kind that the poor people on the subway have... without Blackberrys. God, I'm jealous of my immediate-future-self just thinking about it!), I will be an associate in the XXXX practice at XXXX. That's right, I left this associateship for another associateship. I hope you feel as betrayed and confused as that time my boyfriend dumped me for a girl that looked and sounded and behaved exactly like me. That is a special kind of hurt that screws with your head a lot more than if he had left me for a lingerie model, and today, I bestow this special type of hurt unto you. Good-bye --remember, you'll always be my first and no one can take that away from us.
My time here has been brief but memorable. The cause of the brevity of that time also happens to be the cause of its memorableness. I have learned so much (about Seamless Web) and feel privileged to have worked beside so many wonderful and intelligent people. I'm talking about the architecture firm next door. The friends I have made (are not even half as fun as that night I had to manually velobind thirty sets of shareholder agreements because the velobinding machine broke down and the nightshift paralegal intimidated me too much to ask for his help) and the colleagues I have learned (about bi-polar disorder at the workplace) from have made my experience here both meaningful and enjoyable. I've always wanted my first child to be a boy, and my last word to you as*holes to be a lie.
Best wishes for a safe (see rider for exceptions) and happy new year (id.).
XXXX
Please keep in touch.
XXXX@hotmail.com (I don't have a Hotmail account.)
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