Reality Check

I cleaned out my office today. Took down my name plate from the door and took the last of my stuff home.

While waiting for the janitor to take my boxes away, I sat on one of my visitor's chairs and thought about all the things that had gone on in that room. The meetings, the impromptu wine parties, the heated phone calls, the late late nights, the pre-dawn conference calls.

It's remarkable how life at the Perm can consume you. Until recently, every waking (and sometimes sleeping) hour of my life was immersed in work. Every deal was important. Every document to be preserved, every little thing of utmost importance. I felt that each transaction was the center of the universe, and I had the cosmic responsibility to safeguard it. Talk about quixotic megalomania.

As I closed my office door for the last time, I realized that however I may felt about the importance of my work at the Perm, I really was just another worker ant. A cog in the very large wheel of corporate law.

In a few weeks, some other lawyer will take my room, another name will go on the door, and I will fade into the Perm's hazy memory of former associates.

So much for my cosmic responsibilities.