The Clerkship Diaries: Penny Pincher

PENNY PINCHER
Volume 9, Issue 1
It was about four days into my clerkship at Top Tier & Firm when it dawned on me that I needn’t purchase food like a peasant any longer.

The first epiphany came on the second day. I was at my desk mindlessly privatising Australia’s public assets for amorphous multinational corporations when I spotted a tray of muffins in the adjacent “break out” room next to the “knowledge centre” (kitchen and library respectively – isn’t the corporate world COOL guys?!).

I meandered over – were these glazed delicacies for everyone, or just the equity partners like the car parks?* After doing my best impression of a meerkat and trying desperately to look like I wasn’t actually salivating over muffins barely an hour after breakfast, I took the plunge and grabbed one.

Blueberry. Cinnamon. Warm. Breakfast sorted – TT&F even had free capsule-coffee to wash it down.

The second epiphany came the following day. I was chatting to a ridiculously attractive graduate solicitor on how fracking wasn’t that bad. They suggested we continue the conversation over lunch ‘at one of the training seminars’, and whipped out a timetable of catered “enlightenment lessons” that stretched past Christmas.

Sandwiches, juice, more coffee – lunch was sorted (as was selling out everything I believed in – the fracking conversation did genuinely ensue). No more tuna salad for me! .

The third epiphany came as I was exiting the “knowledge centre” with worryingly less knowledge than I came in with. I spotted a fellow clerk surreptitiously leaving the kitchen (they rejected my proposal to call it the “sustenance hub”) with a steaming cardboard box. “Clerk” I called out. Clerk turned sheepishly.

After a short interrogation (Batman yelling at the joker: “Where are the noodles?!”) I learned that after 6pm clerks were entitled to a free dinner.

And I only had to sell my soul for three more weeks to get it.

Penny Pincher is a third year JD student who is reevaluating his or her career direction

Have a funny clerkship story but still want a grad job? Send it to mlsdeminimis@gmail and we’ll publish it anonymously.

*I found that one out the hard way…
**I admit, I’m making that one up