Stuck

-- By SanjayMurti - 08 May 2012

"No, call me Mark," he said, beckoning to two brown leather chairs in front of an oversized wooden desk. He waved the recruiter out of the room and reached for a couple of water bottles out of a mini-fridge by the door. Atop it, and every other raised surface in the room, lay papers, neatly stacked, but in no clearly discernible order. He handed me a bottle, and then, as if noticing my unease or my exhaustion, he broke into a wide grin, "Kind of a whirlwind, huh?"

It had been a whirlwind. Mark Rogers, the hiring partner of Grigsby & Watterson's corporate department, was my fifth and final interviewer before lunch. I’d spent the morning being shuttled in and out of offices, speaking at length with a carefully culled group of partners and associates. I would spend the afternoon with a different group of associates, at an expensive but casual restaurant, designed to cultivate the firm's work-hard, play-hard persona. The next forty-five minutes, though, were all Mark's.

Mark was 6'3” and broad shouldered - an athlete in a previous life. He was conservatively dressed - charcoal suit, spread (but not too spread) collar - which left his novelty golf ball tie decidedly out of place. He would later tell me that he'd earned the right to wear it; he’d “put in the time.” While I imagined he cut an imposing figure at a negotiating table, he was nothing of the sort here. "You've had enough interviews at this point," he noted somewhat ambivalently, glancing through my résumé. "Besides, you wouldn't be talking to me unless someone thought you'd be a good fit." He tossed my résumé on the desk, knocking askew a stack of papers, and sat down. "So, have any questions?"

I'd had interviews like this before. The standard play was to ask as many rehearsed questions as possible, straddling the line between honestly inquisitive and too lazy to read the firm's website. But, for some reason, I shut the playbook.

"Well," I started, failing to consider my words, "Why are you still here?"

Mark chuckled. "Guess you've heard the pitch, huh? Talk to a bunch of young associates today? Get in, get some experience, get out, right? It's much, uh, stickier than that." He paused. "I don't mean that in a negative way - although it might be for you."

"No, I --" I tried to interject to no avail.

"No, no, it's fine. Most of our associates come in planning on leaving after a couple years. Ends up being harder than you'd think. Some of it is the money, sure. But you get comfortable. And you get busy."

"Comfortable?" I smiled, skeptically. "Don’t think I’ve heard that one."

"Look," Mark continued, "most of the people we bring in can do the work. It's late nights and early mornings, but you adapt. A year or two in, you have a routine. You get comfortable. Get through three years and then you start thinking partner. Sure, if you can't hack it here, you get out. But then again, you probably just lateral to Ryne Lastroud because lifestyle firms 'really care.'"

He punctuated the sentence with air quotes, then leaned forward, flashing a sense of seriousness I hadn't yet seen, "Whether we offer you or not, make sure you remember that. The firm doesn't care about you. It cares about getting work out and money in – as it should.”

Before I could respond, Mark stood up and walked to the window. He picked up a hockey stick that lay propped against the wall. "That's what your generation doesn't get. Been coddled by institutions too long, I guess. You could use a little hit every once in a while." He slapped at a plastic puck on the floor, sending it flying across the room towards a tipped over recycling bin. He missed. "You want personal development? Growth? No firm is going to give you that. But we give you access to people. That’s what’s valuable. The firm doesn’t care if it burns you out and casts you off – you’re interchangeable. A cog in the system. But you can make people care. You can earn that. And when – no, if you do, there’s real value in that. The firm’s greatest resource is its talent and, if you learn to exploit it, you’ll get your development.”

Mark took a couple more swipes at a stack of pucks, then tossed the hockey stick over to me, and settled back in his seat. “It’s my old stick. Boston College, class of ’78. Even got myself a ring.” He paused. “Well, Jim Craig got me a ring.” He nodded over at a display case by the window, then looked at me quizzically, “Shit, when were you born? Do you even know who Jim Craig is?”

It was my turn to chuckle. “Miracle, right?” I replied, “Beat the Soviets?”

Mark laughed. “Right. Forgot there was a Disney movie. Jim had it right, though. You know what his favorite word was? Legacy. Even then. Twenty-three years old, facing down the goddamn Soviets, the kid’s worried about his legacy, his mark on the world. You know what he did after those Olympics?”

“You mean, in life?” I asked. “Not really. I assumed he went to the NHL, though.”

“Yeah. For a few years. Never had much of a hockey career after that. He must have played maybe twenty games. Didn’t much matter though. How much can the NHL matter after something like that? Jim had his legacy after Lake Placid.”

Mark sat back in his chair, folded his hands behind his head, and looked up at the ceiling, caught in a temporary moment of wistful nostalgia. A breath later, he snapped back, caught me square in the eye, and asked an impossible question:

“What’s your legacy, son?”

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