PING

THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES

PING

BY / JEAN TONG

The PARALEGAL works late into the night at home, hunched over their laptop. They speak with the brazen confidence of someone older and more powerful, but this masks a buried anxiety.

The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings.

12 new emails. That’s what happens when you take a 15-minute break for dinner.

I work at a major law firm. You’ve heard of us.

I’m a paralegal there, which is basically a glorified word processor. My entire life is font size and margins and punctuation.

And emails like this. ‘Brief by 9am tomorrow.’ Thanks Martin, you’ve also told me this on Slack and by text, and in the daily Zoom meeting.

When my seniors send something by email, it’s just, ‘this is what I feel – send’. They forget there’s a human being on the other end.

Getting these is like going through that laser beam obstacle in every heist movie you see. The emails are laser beams, obviously. Cause they sting.

The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings.

Zap zap bitch. ‘Where’s the client correspondence? Reminder high profile, URGENT. ASAP.’ That’s in all caps.

The PARALEGAL leans back, rubs her eyes, sighs.

I never thought I’d miss sniffing someone else’s armpits on the morning commute, but I do.

As soon as the scale of the virus became clear, the firm pivoted to restructuring and insolvency, so we’re thriving.

Maybe thriving too much? Yesterday one of my senior associates had her first meal in two days – 48 hours.

Which is why lowly lil’ me is still going through these documents –

The PARALEGAL holds up a thick stack of papers, checks on-screen clock.

– at [current time during monologue].

You didn’t see the name did you? Good. The client a major airline that hasn’t been profitable for eight years. Without government support, it’s going to a new owner. Probably come back with a facelift.

Hopefully it’ll come back. Otherwise we’ll have just one national carrier, and we all know how monopolies work…

Those are my personal feelings, obviously. The firm is just here to protect the directors and to protect the value of the company. Which usually involves preventing the directors getting sued or going to jail. Generally speaking, anyway.

I am in no way suggesting this is currently happening for this airline.

The PARALEGAL returns to squinting at their documents.

However, this font size 5 here. Always a sign someone doesn’t want someone else to see something.

One of the things we do is make sure small shareholders are ‘crammed down’. This means finding ways to force an investor to accept that their shares are worth jack. By the time we come in, every single person has become a number on the balance sheet, and some numbers are more important than others.

Corporate value is number one. And that’s sad, truly sad.

It’s hard being around such ugly talk all the time. Sometimes, the shareholders are people who invested their pension fund, but the way we talk about them is like. ‘They should have prepped for the worst. Never assume returns. Nothing is forever.’

Is it that stupid to be hopeful?

The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings. They get visibly antsy.

‘Summary on dividend payout research?’ I sent that yesterday, check your inbox before you come after me, you old bag…

In law school, I thought I would save the world. Hah.

We’re all just corporate bodyguards with crippling anxiety.

Sometimes it’s hard. Blocking everything out. I have to be like one of those horses with the blockers? Blinders. Shit – that’s it. I’m a workhorse. A typesetting workhorse trying to navigate a laser obstacle.

Have to ignore the human cost. Mortgage to pay? Corporate value. Credit card debt? Corporate value. How am I going to do this one more day? Corporate value.

I used to picture myself quitting. Throwing a plant through the boardroom windows. Pissing on the nice Persian carpets in the foyer. Pissing on the stupid named partner merch. All the… fancy paper.

Not the same in my own house.

You know what would really – if I sent these [holds up documents] to The Guardian or something. Now that. That would really be.

The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings.

I could.

The PARALEGAL stares at their screen. A moment.

The PARALEGAL opens the email.

‘Dear all, I’ve just had the chance to read… Thank you for all your work picking up… Special thank you to.’

Oh.

‘Special thank you to [actor name] for the many late hours! Regards.’

The PARALEGAL leans back. A long-ish pause.

This role is the garbage collecting of the legal world.

I do so much small shit that feels invisible, but in the grand scheme of things, if no one takes the garbage out…

And if I can prove myself during crunch time, then…

Long-term goals, right?

The fact is we all gotta make money.

The PARALEGAL looks back at the email.

‘Special thank you’.

The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings. They sigh.

They’d just get another me if I left, anyway.