Having been unable to persuade a single person to assist me with my cases I am forced to go to Plan B: Working the Weekend.  Saturday morning arrives and, instead of spending a lazy morning in bed and planning trips to the gym/shops/pub, I am up with the larks and tripping into The City.  I get off the tube and head towards the office.  It is eerily quiet; there are no people around; the roads are devoid of cars and the shops are firmly shut. Feeling like the only person left in the world I push open the foyer doors to find Kevin, the night guard; engrossed in some trashy novel.

“Hello Kevin,” I greet him.

“Oh!” he sits up with a start and hides the book. “I wasn’t expecting anyone so early. What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been sent from the English Literary Society to root out readers of bad fiction,” I gesture to the book.

“It’s not bad,” he scowls, “Parts of it are quite high brow.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, there is a murder at Royal Ascot and a car case between two Porsches and a Bentley.”

“Very highbrow.” Practically Dostoyevsky.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” he sniffs, as if I am trespassing.

“Working.”

“At Eight o’clock on a Saturday morning?”

“I have a lot to do.”

He shakes his head. “You young lawyers spend all your time in the office; one day you’ll wake up and find you’ve reached middle age without noticing. “

“Thanks for that cheery thought, Kevin.”

“It’s true,” he nods, “I know cos I spent most of my youth playing war games; I may have been Barnet and Hendon area champion but I was still single and living with my parents.  One day I had an epiphany: I said: Kevin do you want to spend all your life cooped up in your bedroom, never socialising, never meeting girls? And I thought: no, I don’t. So I stopped playing the games, went on a training course and got myself a job.”

As a night guard…..

“Did it work?” I ask, wondering what difference there is between spending evenings in our foyer and in his bedroom.

“Yeah!” he nods. “This job gives me lots of time to chat to my new security mates on Facebook; I joined an internet dating service and I found a flat online.”

 “Lucky you,” I wonder if I should look into security guard training…..

“Yeah,” he nods, “Take it from me: you have to reclaim your life if you don’t want to end up on the scrap heap.”

“Perhaps you can tell that to my Boss,” I suggest. “He’s the one who is depriving me of our free time.”

“The thing is,” he says knowingly, “If you sell your soul to the Devil you have to honour the contract.”

“I’ll bear that in mind.”

“You do that, now it’s the end of my shift, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go home for a nap.”

Feeling irritated at having to take life lessons from someone who never sees daylight, I turn on my heels and head to the lifts.

The floor is deserted; (even!) Tarquin has the sense to avoid work on a Saturday morning.

I busy myself by making coffee and then decide to raid the secret biscuit cupboard; helping myself to an armful of Hobnobs.

The morning passes in a blur of faxes, memos and reports; I have never been so productive; without the constant interruptions from Jane, Melinda and the partners I have finished oodles of things off.  I wonder if The Boss would allow me to permanently change my working patterns to come in when no one else is here?

The only problem is the lack of food. Without my morning stop at Pret a Manger I’m still hungry. A secret raid on the kitchen is woefully unproductive (half a cheese scone and a prawn cocktail) so I scour the office. 

I begin with Liz (horder of all office biscuits) but she’s on her pre-wedding diet and the prospect of Ryvita and Special K is not appealing. Alex next, he has no food, of course, but a nice collection of style magazines and some unisex scent which I test (rancid).  Jane eats nothing but small children but I try her anyway; a quick rummage through her desk throws up a bottle of gin and a tin of Barocca.  Dan has some cereal bars so I steal those and laugh at his draft leaving speech which is perched on his desk.  I try Tarquin out of desperation, but it proves to be the most fortuitous: not only does he have a secret supply of Ferrero Roche but he also has a copy of the latest legal salary survey. Gold dust! According to the figures for CWS I am underpaid by at least ten thousand pounds.  I take a copy and make a mental note to ask The Boss about this (obvious) oversight on Monday morning.

Then I have a thought, spurred on by this discovery and empowered by the knowledge that I am the only person here, I decide to poke around the partners’ rooms. There is an illicit thrill in knowing that I can rifle their drawers and no one will know….. 

I start with Miranda’s, which is more of a dressing room than an office; I push past mountains of make-up and accessories before I can even locate any work.   But what I find is hilarious: in her Legal 500/Chambers file there are references for herself!  DearAntony, she has written, as agreed, when those lovely reference people come calling, this is what I should like you to write:’ Miranda Myers is a force to be reckoned with; I wouldn’t instruct anyone else’. And there’s more; to another she says: “Miranda Myers is a litigation legend,” and to a third (the best one!) “Miranda Myers is the closest thing I have found to litigation perfection,” Ha ha ha!  I wonder what she gives them in return.

Spurred on by this I consider my next options.

Malcolm’s office is too impenetrable to even attempt (I could die of asphyxiation in there and no one would ever find me.  My body would be preserved for decades under the perma-mess until a team of plucky young climbers venture in and stumble across my remains) but Clive’s is better: cleaner, tidier and he has memos about ‘new partnership initiatives’. Marvellous! Apparently the firm is looking to open an office inAbu Dhabiand there is a freeze on recruitment at the moment. Interesting….

I hit The Boss’s room and, soon, I am swinging my legs and playing with his executive toys as if it they were my own. Before I know it, I’m pulling open his draws and sifting through the piles of paper on his desk; reading the management accounts and reviewing the firm’s profit forecasts!  And, then, I stumble across the most astonishing thing of all: our pay reviews. A spread sheet of everyone’s salary and the increase they are in line to receive. This is the ultimate Cornelian dilemma:  read it and be empowered (but, perhaps, disappointed); avoid it and be ignorant (but content).  I choose empowerment. And immediately wish I hadn’t: there in black and white is the proof to what I have long suspected: I am paid less than every one of my peers! Less than Liz, Alex, Jane, Jack, Siobhan, Tarquin, Dan, and, even, Simon!

My heart lurches. How dare they pay me (me who is here on a Saturday!) less than everyone else! I feel sick. I want to smash the executive toys to smithereens. I am so cross I could cry! 

But then slowly, surely, an icy fury descends. I walk calmly to the photocopier, take two copies and scan another to myself. Then I pick up my coat, switch of my computer and leave. 

“May I ask what you are doing?” Asks the new guard, as I pass back through the foyer.

“Taking Kevin’s advice,” I tell him. “Reclaiming my weekend.”