Review? Young Frances - Hartley Lin

(I’m trying to get more writing without AI as practice, and not pigeonhole myself on solely tech topics. This post is also, unfortunately, a half hearted reconstruction of a much more heart felt and personally deeply resonant post I wrote that I then lost to a drive failure. So I hope I can do better quality as time goes on.)

I struggle with feeling stagnant. Feeling stuck, not going anywhere. I feel that in my job sometimes. A lot, even. I don’t know what I am cut out for, because I’ve spent so many years working in a very slow moving workplace without really feeling like I’m gaining any significant strides. And I don’t really make the move to leave either. Because they treat me well, they let me be remote, I’m paid well for where I live. I am content. Why mess with that? But I can’t shake the malaise, y’know? The rest of my life doesn’t seem to move either, I don’t meet the expected societal markers of progress (I will let you guess which ones because I’m not really intent on revealing everything about myself). And even though I work to divest myself of those expectations, I still feel stuck to them. Just like I feel stuck to this job. It’s my fault I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not doing anything about it, even though I could. Why?

In Young Frances by Hartley Lin, Frances Scarland is a law clerk who works at a high powered corporate law firm. The people who are trying to be upwardly mobile in the firm don’t seem to have a life. Everything they do is in service of the law firm, in the hopes they can go high enough to make partner or something like that (I don’t know how law firms work, this is what I’m inferring). There are jokes about people not seeing their family and children, sleeping in the office. They’re not even jokes sometimes, just a statement of fact that they accept with a sort of neutrality. Everyone arranging their lives to the demands of the firm and its machinations for their various clients. One woman talks about how good Frances has it because the firm is no longer an actively abusive place to work. The firm only takes, and is happy to take as much as it can and demand more. And people press on, because that is what is what they expect of themselves.

I see the writing on the wall with AI coming for my job, and yet I feel like I’m doing nothing. I’m not doing a great job advocating for myself.

There is also a layer of support staff for the law firm, the ones who do the paperwork, file motions, look up cases, other tasks too menial for the actual lawyers. They don’t seem to go anywhere, they are perpetually in limbo, under constant stress, with no guarantees. And they stay on in that limbo. They prefer other people stay on too.

I learn by doing, by practicing. I’m doing more interesting stuff now, or forcing myself to as a 20% project. I wonder if its too late. Six years into a career answering tickets and manipulating a terminal and not much else. Any project that touches multiple teams may as well be impossible because of how long it takes and how unimportant your ask is to them compared to the workload they are already overloaded with.

Castonguay is a partner in the firm and takes a special interest in Frances. He exists only in service of the machinations of the law firm. He is the machinations, so tied he is to the firm that you don’t know if the law firm is simply an abstract manifestation of his will or if he is simply the anthropomorphic manifestation of the will of the law firm. The only reason he is human is because he chooses to mentor Frances. He wants to see her go somewhere. Not stuck, not stagnant. He sees something in Frances, and points out that she could remain there, stuck, circling, like the rest of the support staff until the axe eventually comes for her from falling short of billable hours or some other banal reason despite record profits. Or she could do something for herself. Make something of herself.

Am I making something of myself? Am I even trying? Am I too scared to try?

Frances while ruminating at night, says to herself “No one dreams of becoming the best law clerk. What am I even doing?“. She’s good at her job. Excellent, even. But is that all she is? Should she be doing more? What does more even mean? And she feels stuck here. Unable to go anywhere else. Her roommate who is an insufferable actor (in my opinion, yet they still have a worthwhile friendship where they truly deeply care about each other) gets her big break in Hollywood. She entices Frances to come join her because her experiences at a dysfunctional office could provide great writing material for her show. The writers room doesn’t have anyone with actual office experience so she could really make a contribution. But Frances… stays. Not because she’s found meaning or purpose in her work yet, but she feels like its too late for her. She’s not her roommate. She can’t just up and leave. “I feel like I have to make it work here. I can’t just start over somewhere else”. So she stays. Because its all she knows. Even if it is a corporation that is sucking the blood out of anyone and everyone they touch, employees and clients.

It’s a scary thing, stability. Even if it is a veneer, it feels safer than the unknown. The idea of trying something new is terrifying. Even if the thing that is supposedly stable is heading towards a cliff, it is easier to cling on because maybe the cliff isn’t actually there. Maybe you can hold on and continue feeling safe. Because the idea of jumping off sounds like it might hurt a lot. And maybe if I close my eyes, I can pretend the cliff isn’t there.

Frances doesn’t want to stagnate. She wants to find meaning. Even if that meaning is climbing further up in the meat grinder. Maybe the facade holds a little longer, even if the office building’s facade is cracking. So she takes the promotion from the ghoulish man who will throw his junior lawyers under the bus because they didn’t spend the hours sleeping in the office they should have. That’s just the sort of person he is.

I don’t know if Hartley Lin is advocating for Frances or condemning her or simply observing her. But what I do know is that Young Frances is a warning. It’s a warning to me about stagnation. But it’s also a warning to me about choosing something that will slowly drain your life force away, even if it seems like you are moving forward. There has got to be something better. There has to be meaning somewhere else. If only I can jump off this comfortable train.