Dear fellow Scrivener,

Thanks for reaching out regarding a reference for Bartleby, who you say has applied for a scrivening position on your team.

At my practice, we see team members as more than their jobs—we see them as people whose life skills and perspectives create a fuller, more engaged employee. Bringing these “outside the box” resources to bear on our work helps us to compete effectively in an ever-more crowded market. Our silo-less workplace means that everyone’s priorities are the company’s priorities, the company’s priorities are everyone’s priorities. In fact, Bartleby was hired as a Scrivening Storyteller, a role where he was expected to demonstrate flexibility across channels and explore nontraditional scrivening opportunities such as video, podcast, and music. Although you may wonder what use a Wall Street law firm has for such storytelling innovation, I want to emphasize that we have been taken in this direction by our chief strengths—nimbleness and responsiveness to the market. Our briefs are almost exclusively filed by YouTube nail art influencers or in the form of fast-motion video cooking tutorials.

In light of this, I regret to say that I cannot wholeheartedly recommend Bartleby to fill your scrivening role. He fell short of my expectations, and the team’s, as a culture fit and coworker. Bartleby is not a self-starter or self-motivated, and he did not make an effort to fit into, much less champion, our workplace culture. For example, while almost all of the team here submitted to receiving innovative, creativity-forward nicknames like Nipper and Ginger Nut, Bartleby pointedly refused. Rather than celebrating our silo-less team structure, Bartleby seemed to enforce silos, and pressured his coworkers to acknowledge an unproductive barrier between “professional” and “personal” life, something our office has worked hard to break down with events like our team scavenger hunt for the detritus of capitalism, our monthly lottery to determine who picks the SodaStream flavors, and the workplace flexibility we introduced by creating billing codes for “reckless innovation” and showering at the office.

Although Bartleby is a competent worker, I hesitate to voice any recommendation stronger than caution as you move forward in bringing him on as a member of your scrivening team.

Yours sincerely,
The Lawyer
Chief Law Storytelling Officer
Wall Street