If the shoe fits...

Like most law graduates on the well-trodden corporate firm trajectory, I fancy myself a square peg in a round hole.

While the rest of the recruits are soulless, uni-dimensional suits stoking the fires of partnership ambitions, I'm a maverick.

Nobler, artistic dreams are nestled in my sensitive bosom.

Sure, I might not be working at Legal Aid and moonlighting as a writer, but I still project an ironic sense of detachment from the business of The Firm and its hollow mercenary values. I pledge allegiance to the underprivileged by swilling free trade tea (which, rumour has it, has been rolled out in the Sydney office of one multi-national outfit) in a brief respite from the billables.

To maintain the self-deception, I find it necessary to avoid events at which lawyers are likely to congregate.

Friday night drinks are out. One is apt to discover that the associate across the open-plan partition directs amateur theatre in his or her spare time, has an impressive pro bono record and plays the drums.

It would be too much to bear in light of the mounting evidence of my uniformity on all fronts (see e.g. stuffwhitepeoplelike.com). It seems white people are united in considering themselves "creative", getting riled up over grammar and appreciating irony.

Stripped of the illusion of individuality, I'm a hollow shell.