Free Diary of a Yuppie by Louis Auchincloss Page A

his own. He and I are a team.

9
    W ELL, I HAVE "done the deed."
    For Glenn at last was guilty of something gravely out of line with the policy of our firm. At a meeting in my office of the executive committee, consisting of him, myself, Douglas Hyde and Peter Stubbs, he actually suggested that three of "his" associates, because of the "splendid" work they had done for his client Ace Investors, be given an extra award of five thousand dollars apiece despite the fact that the Christmas bonuses to the lawyers and staff had already been announced.
    "But that's preposterous!" I exclaimed. "It would throw our whole compensation scheme out of whack. What can you be thinking of, Glenn?"
    "I'm thinking of three crack lawyers who have worked their asses off and deserve to be rewarded for their missing posteriors."
    "All our people work hard."
    "Not like mine, kiddo. Not like mine."
    "That's ridiculous! And even if it were so, it's no reason to make invidious distinctions. We can't run a firm if every partner is going to demand special treatment for his associates."
    "Every partner? Am I every partner?"
    "All right, any partner."
    "That's hogwash, Bob, and you know it. The partners who bring in the bacon are entitled to have their minor requests honored without all this haggling. Hell, I'd vote the same bonus for your people."
    "But I'd never ask it. That's the difference between us. This business of firms within firms has got to stop. This business of partners acting as lobbyists for their own departments. Quit being such a mother hen, Glenn! Your chicks are no more yours than they are Peter's or Doug's or mine."
    Now why did I have to be quite so nasty? Was I spoiling for a fight? I was. I had the feeling that a showdown was due between us and that it was better to push it while I held the good cards.
    Glenn, I should explain, now seemed to me the very embodiment of all that was wrong with our world. He was violent and undisciplined. He grabbed whatever it pleased him to grab. And having no morals, or even any guiding principles, he protected himself in the only way such a creature could—with a bodyguard of unquestioning dependents. Wasn't that the way all civilizations were fated to end, with Alarics and Attilas leading troops of blindly loyal ruffians into bloody and ruthless battle against each other? Where the loyalty of the lesser to the greater brute was the only quality left that could even be said to resemble a virtue?
    Glenn, at any rate, called for a vote, although, as a committee, we had always acted on consensus. When he lost, three to one, he announced furiously that he would take the matter to the firm, which he proceeded to do at the next of our biweekly lunches.
    These lunches, which were faithfully attended by every partner not actually in court or at a closing or out of town, were held in a private dining room in a midtown lunch club. After a first course of general chatter, I would call the meeting to order and initiate the discussion of firm matters. It was then that I responded to Glenn's demand for the three bonuses denied by the committee:
    "Let me say at once, gentlemen, that I regard the question of compensation as within the exclusive jurisdiction of the executive committee. That committee cannot be reversed. It can only be abolished and a new committee appointed in its place. A vote in favor of Mr. Deane's resolution is in effect a vote to abolish the committee."
    "I don't give a damn how I get my bonuses," Glenn retorted in his most grating tone, "so long as I get them. If abolishing the executive committee is the only efficient way to run this firm, then I say let's abolish it!" He glared defiantly around the table. "And, yes, I
do
so move. Are you going to second my motion, Lew?"
    "I second it, Glenn."
    "Address the chair, please!" I called out.
    "I second it, Mr. Service." Lew Pessen was Glenn's particular sidekick.
    "Very well, the motion is made and seconded," I announced tartly. "Before it is