The Floater

by Sorrentino, Sheryl

• ISBN13: 9781477436899
• ISBN10: 1477436898
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-08-04
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub

Summary

All 46-year-old Norma Reyes wanted was to shatter the glass ceiling and become a well-paid professional. Despite being raised in a poor, Puerto Rican household (the eldest daughter of an unfeeling mother and a lecherous father), Norma manages to put herself through law school in middle-age, confident that once she earns her law degree, she'll land a job at a top-tier law firm and be able to support her elderly mother while subsidizing her welfare-collecting, drug abusing younger sister, 22-year-old autistic nephew, and 19-year-old niece (herself the single-mother of two young children). But after successfully completing a summer clerkship at one of New York City's most prestigious firms, Norma's plans for career advancement are derailed by The Great Recession. Rather than receive the glamorous, $160,000-per-year associate position she expected from Robertson, Levine and Shemke, Norma is instead offered a consolation prize as a floating secretary when the firm imposes a hiring freeze on new attorneys. Norma is grateful to have landed any job in such a brutal economy, but gets a bitter taste of just how thankless and demeaning it is to be a "floater": She's shuffled from desk to desk; ordered around like a trained seal; and forced not only to order lunch for stuck-up attorneys half her age, but serve it to them as well. When Norma is reassigned to Jonathan Shemke, the firm's managing partner, she hopes he's summoned her to work as his law clerk (a position she held the previous summer). But even that modest ambition is squelched when it turns out Jon merely needed to replace his disgruntled secretary. If that were not bad enough, Jonathan calls Norma into his office to enigmatically announce new job duties that include scheduling "private" appointments with a high-priced escort service. Norma's reward for executing this distasteful (and illegal) task is an onslaught of unpaid legal research assignments, even while she continues toiling as Jon's executive secretary and personal gatekeeper. Norma's luck seemingly changes for the better when she meets Oscar, the copy room supervisor. Despite her misgivings about this African American divorcé-his unremarkable job, ex-wife and teenage daughters, Norma finds herself instantly drawn to him. But no sooner do they declare their feelings for one another than Oscar hands Norma a "smoking gun": An incriminating, tell-all memo, authored by Jonathan, admitting to age and national origin discrimination in the firm's decision not to hire Norma as a junior attorney. Despite this latest setback, Oscar's plainspoken integrity and loving attentiveness help Norma find the inner strength she needs to battle the firm for her rights, while their increasingly intimate connection forces her to acknowledge the invisible scars left behind from her own troubled childhood.