SEVEN #3
Well, we didn’t need fucking Dumpling Day in the firm cafeteria. We needed decoder rings for all of the unwritten rules of survival here.
Dr. Rossi was rubbing his chin. “Do you think it’s possible for young women of color to find mentors at a place like this?”
“Possible, yes. Easy, no,” I said.
“Have you, personally, made attempts to find mentors during your career here?”
I smiled ruefully.
“Did I say something funny?” Dr. Rossi asked.
I shrugged. “Well, they’re always giving advice to young associates to ‘find a mentor early on.’ Oh, sure. Like it’s just that easy.”
“Isn’t it?” he prompted.
“No.”
When we’d first arrived at Parsons Valentine, we were cheerfully given name tags and ushered into a first-year orientation session in a midtown ballroom, where we were plied with Perrier and sushi as a chorus of shiny young partners trumpeted advice.
Seek out mentors and sponsors! Walk right up and introduce yourself to the partners you want to learn from! Don’t be shy about asking for work!
I took their advice. Or tried to. I carefully planned how I would approach Ellen Chu Sanderson, the only Chinese American woman at the firm, who had been named Of Counsel (a rung that was a step below partner, just not quite there).
I’d already read her profile in the New York Law Journal, where she had once been featured as one of the Top Ten Women Lawyers of Color to Watch.
(The joke went that it hadn’t been hard to make the list when there were only fifty or so practicing.)
Ellen was in her midforties, married with no kids—her husband was a managing director at Goldman—and she’d been named Of Counsel when she was thirty-nine, in the firm’s Intellectual Property group.
I knew all of this because I had done my research.
She’d gone to Yale, too—both college and law school—and had even played on the Yale women’s tennis team.
With all that in common, how could she not take me under her wing?
She’d tell me which partners to work with, the ones to avoid.
The screamers, the nice guys. Perhaps she’d take me to lunch.
It would start out as an occasional thing, but soon we’d have a monthly lunch date where we’d dish about everything from who was making partner to where she got her hair done.
Eventually she’d invite me to her house in the Hamptons, where we’d giggle over lemonade and tea cookies and I would let her beat me at tennis.
(I knew she and her husband had such a house; they’d once offered it as a summer rental in the Parsons Valentine newsletter. Fifteen thousand for the month.)
So one morning soon after arriving at the firm, I’d looked up Ellen Chu Sanderson in the firm’s online directory and mustered up the courage to stop by her office.
I walked past the unfamiliar names on the brass nameplates—I hadn’t been up to the thirty-third floor yet, nor had I met many lawyers from the IP group—and paused in front of the one that read ELLEN CHU SANDERSON.
The door was partially closed, and I could hear her on the phone inside. I hesitated.
“Help you with something, sweetie?” asked Ellen Chu Sanderson’s secretary, a young, pretty, heavily eyeshadowed woman sitting behind the counter across from me.
“Oh!” I whirled around. “I’m a new associate here, and I just wanted to say hello to Ellen.” Then I thought that might sound weird, so I said by way of explanation, “We—we both played tennis on the same college team.”
She smiled. “Well, I’m sure Ellen’d love to meet you.” She winked and lowered her voice. “Ellen’s a real sweetie. I lucked out, you know? You should have seen the guy they gave me when I first got here.”
I smiled and nodded. “Yeah.” And I welled up with pride that my future mentor was someone whom secretaries spoke kindly about.
“Oh, looks like she’s off the phone,” said Ellen’s secretary. “Quick. Better catch her before she gets on another call. Just knock and go on in.”
“Even though she has her door closed?”
“Oh yeah, she just does that when she’s having her breakfast or lunch in there.” Again she lowered her voice and whispered. “She doesn’t like it when people see her eat,” she informed me.
“Oh,” I said, stepping up to the door and giving it a firm knock.
“Come in,” said a sweet voice, lilting and warm.
I opened the door and walked into Ellen Chu Sanderson’s office. She looked younger than she did in her photo. She wore her hair in a short shiny bob and had cat’s-eye glasses and very white teeth.
She blinked up at me, and I swear her smile disappeared in about a split second.
“Can I help you?” she asked. Her tone wasn’t unfriendly (not quite), but it wasn’t welcoming, either. Undaunted, sort of, I put on my best interview smile and walked forward to her desk. “Hi,” I said brightly. “I’m Ingrid Yung.”
She remained where she was. “Ohh-kay. And I’m supposed to know you how?”
She might as well have slapped me. I wanted to turn and run, but I stood my ground. “Uh, you don’t know me, actually,” I heard myself say. “I’m a new associate in Corporate, and I just wanted to come and introduce myself. I understand you also played Yale Tennis when you were there.”
“And how would you know that?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
I suddenly felt incredibly stupid. This had been a very poor idea. How could I have been so presumptuous? Ellen Chu Sanderson had more important things to do than adopt some first-year as the little sister she’d never had.
“Oh, I, uh—”
“Listen,” she said with a fake half-smile. “I’m swamped. Now’s really not a good time.”
I looked at the half-eaten English muffin and the copy of The Wall Street Journal open on her desk.
“Okay. I—I’m sorry,” I said, backing out of her office.
“It was good of you to stop by,” she said, closing the door in my face.
That was the first and last time I ever spoke to Ellen Chu Sanderson.
For years afterward, whenever we spotted each other at firm cocktail parties, we’d duck our heads and avoid each other.
She seemed as reluctant to cross paths with me as I was to run into her.
Maybe she figured there was only room for one Asian American, female, Yale Tennis alumna at the firm, and that was just fine with her.
She left Parsons Valentine last year after being appointed to a high-ranking counsel position at the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office. I suspect we were both relieved.
Dr. Rossi was looking at me gravely. “And how does it make you feel, Ingrid, to know that it isn’t as easy for women to find willing mentors as it is for men?”
I flinched. Dr. Rossi was making my head hurt. I had neither the time nor the desire to help him perform his dramatic overhaul of the gender and race hierarchy in corporate America. If he thought he’d found his little Norma Rae, he was sorely mistaken.
“Sorry,” I said. I’d had enough. “I have a conference call in five minutes. Can we continue this conversation another time?”
He looked thoughtfully at me. “I look forward to it.”