To the first letter writer,

A person who does not produce billable hours at a law firm is considered dead weight. Guess what? Law firms suck for non-lawyers. One might argue they suck for lawyers too, and as a lawyer in a large law firm, I might agree. That said, at least I get paid exceedingly well to put up with jerks like your boss. Why exactly do you think you have "great career prospects?" I just had lunch with a senior partner at my firm, and he referred to the non-lawyers at our firm as “serfs.” He said that they were only there in case he needs a light bulb changed. I do not agree with his philosophy but I assure you, this is the view of most lawyers in large law firms.

In any case, this woman is not going to help you. What do you expect she could do--write a recommendation for you for law school? Turns out, that will about as helpful as having your Starbucks barista write a recommendation (professors or perhaps federal judges are the only recommendations that have weight in law school admissions). By the way, you shouldn't think of yourself as lucky to work at the firm. They, no doubt, have a difficult time finding skilled support staff and are, in fact, lucky to employ an ambitious college graduate. I know this is the case at my firm. In fact, there is huge turnover for all employees at large law firms for just the reasons you mention in this letter.

There is no inherent value to having this woman mistreat you. It would be one thing if you were working for Anna Wintour or for someone in a field in which there was a real possibility your boss could promote your career. This is not the case here. You've already learned what there is to learn from this job, i.e. you need to learn to pay attention to detail despite how much you might hate doing it and some people who you will work for will be abusive a**holes. Now, I recommend making friends with someone in HR so they can arrange for you to be transferred to work with other, less abusive partners in the firm.

How ambitious can a person be if they aren't willing to work their tail off to get what they want? Unless this particular lawyer is especially egregious, I'm guessing that for some reason, this kid is dispaying attitude toward her. Perhaps he/she feels the other lawyers in the group don't care for her, or she's not a partner yet and the others are, or simply the kid doesn't like to work for women. Either way, he/she may not be doing his best work here.

It is true, though, that women often are much harder task masters than men. I personally suspect it's because they usually had to push themselves much harder for many (most?) careers than their male counterparts have. That doesn't mean that they should take it out on the lackeys, but they do. It may even be she's harder on this kid, because she's really trying to help the kid get ahead. Letting mistakes slide is no way to get anywhere in the work world.

I want to add one thing, I cannot fathom people who cannot figure out how to give directions based on Ordinates and/Or Map Coordinates. Anyone who has been to DC knows how imperative it is to get things absolutely correct when writing down directions. And for crying out loud doesn't this child know how to use Mapquest to cover her ass? Cyber generation my ass. /sarcasm

First paragraph: this is a typical gen.x response. No, you shouldn't work your tail off to get little to know approval. You do the job described on your contract, or in your job description, to the best of your abilities, and if bosses want to change that, they'll need to go through the appropriate bureaucratic hoops.

Aside from that, I mostly agree with you, especially your second paragraph. Another unfortunate factor may be that the female boss feels threatened by the younger assistant based on her youthful looks. Even though the assistant obviously poses no direct threat to the boss's job, she may "age" the older woman, and consequently make the boss seem like she's a step from retirement.

Shouldn't be the case, but is all too often.

I laughed out loud when I read the letter writer's dismissal of such a 'little' detail as 'Northwest'. When it comes to DC, that's the difference between getting somewhere on time (hopefully) or ending up stuck in traffic for an hour on the opposite side of the city. Maybe six more months in DC will help her appreciate the importance of well marked address and appointment books.

Also, as a member of Gen-Y, I can definitely attest to how little it means to be a non-lawyer in a law firm. I'm pre-law at George Washington U, and I work as a floater in a large law firm. I'm an extremely hard worker and I've occasionally impressed lawyers in the firm enough to warrant pleasant thank you/pat on the backs, but will I be scurrying to my workplace for recommendations when I begin putting my law school applications together? Hell no.

jade:

First paragraph: this is a typical gen.x response. No, you shouldn't work your tail off to get little to know approval.

jade:

First paragraph: this is a typical gen.x response. No, you shouldn't work your tail off to get little to know approval. You do the job described on your contract, or in your job description, to the best of your abilities, and if bosses want to change that, they'll need to go through the appropriate bureaucratic hoops.

No member of GenX would ever admit to working their tale off. We're beautiful slackers. Also the LW just graduated from college - so missed GenX by at least 5 years. (GenX is a specific age bracket, not just people in their early twenties...)

Wikied-

The Builders (1920-1945), the Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1979), Generation Y (1980-1994) and Generation Z (1995-2009).

The Reverend and I are at exactly the opposite ends of the Baby Boomer spectrum. I've always thought the BB spectrum was too wide, encompassing 18 years. People born in the 40s were growing up in the 50s and people born in the 60s were growing up in the 70s. That's like the difference between Pat Boone and Led Zeppelin with The Doors in between!

I hear people talking about growing up in the 50s and it just leaves me cold, all that poodle skirt and sock hop and repressed sexuality nonsense. I swear to god the only kind of music that makes my flesh crawl is do-wop. They don't seem like "my generation" at all. When I think of the 50s I think of my parents, who were teenagers then.

On the other hand, The Reverend will be recalling a story from his golden past about his bachelor pad in Dana Point with the hot tub and the helicopter pad and I'll be thinking of what I must have been doing then...laying on the floor on Sunday morning. eating Winchell's donuts and watching Wonderama, waiting for Soul Train to come on next.

He doesn't remember as much about the 70s as I do. Let's face it, while I had all the time in the world to do really important things like memorize the words to the theme song from Maude, he was busy trying to run his family's businesses, pay for a mortgage and juggle the ladies. He didn't have time to learn that Lady Godiva was a freedom rider who didn't care if the whole world looked or that Joan of Arc, with the lord to guide her, she was a sister who really cooked.

At least now I know why my kid bro and sis are so screwed up. They're Gen Xers!

Wagon Wheelers (Self-Explanatory)

Metal Smashers (Industrial Age)

Turners (1893-1908)

Probies (Prohibition Era)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't generational limits shortened in the past hundred years?

I think in terms of family trees and genetics, a new generation emerges about every thirty years, not every ten.

But maybe it's like fashion where the change is always accelerating.

I am quite aware that one definition of generation X is to be born between specific calendar years. Another is determined by parentage (I was borne from boomers, which according to some makes me a member generation X, like my older sisters.)

Gen-Xers that I know had to work very hard to fight the negative connotations of their generation. That's why - I've been told by people who study such things - they think you have to always be self-sacrificing to get ahead.

Well, "generations" implies different things. Technically, a generation is the number of years between the parent and the child. In my case, for instance, there are two generation to the Reconstruction. One family may have 5 generations born in the US, when someone else descended from the same group of immigrants may be on the 7th or 8th generation. However, for generalities, as in "it's been X generation since ..." then they generally mean 25-30 years.

Finally, when they are talking about commonalities and differences between different age groups, based on when they were born and not on how many years they have been alive (e.g. people born in the 1990's vs. teenagers), then they really mean "cohort group". Teenagers tend to do certain things based on their maturity level, like fall in love easily. People born in the 1990's tend to be very tech savvy. It's specific to the current and fairly recent crops of teens, as opposed to all teens.

"Generation" is a poor substitute of terms for cohort group, because, as you so aptly pointed out, generations almost always are more than 10 years apart, by either of the first 2 definitions.

It makes a lot more sense in demographic terms, especially when studies can then be arranged on, for example, people who graduated high school in a certain year. It's easier to track them that way.

My age cohort are (if they're smart) saving like fury to retire because we know that there won't be any government pensions for anyone, anywhere.