I just left a message on an associate's cell phone. He was supposed to meet me in the office this morning to work on some document review, but he didn't show up. He sent me an e-mail that his wife is in the hospital, but apparently she's still alive. So he should be here. That's no excuse. As long as she hangs on, he should be here. I called to tell him he needed to report to the office right away, but it went right to voicemail. I'm pretty upset about it. I left a message:

"Hey, I want to tell you something, OK? I want to leave a message for you right now. Because it's 10:30 here in the office, and once again you've demonstrated a complete lack of regard for me, for the firm, and for your once-promising and now-destroyed career. When the time comes for me to go to work, I stop whatever I'm doing and I go and I come into the office. But you? You're not here, and you don't even have your damn phone turned on. So I want you to know something, OK?"

"I'm tired of playing this game with you. I'm leaving this message with you to tell you you have insulted me for the last time. You have insulted me. You don't have the brains or the decency as a human being. I don't give a damn that you've been at the firm 12 years, or 2 years, or you don't even work here, or your wife is in the hospital, or your seventeen children are all dead. Or that your secretary is a thoughtless pain in the ass. You have humiliated me for the last time."

"I'm going to come and find you, just to straighten you out on this issue. I'm going to let you know just how disappointed in you I am and how angry I am with you that you've done this to me again. You've made me feel like a mere associate over and over and over again, instead of a hiring partner, which I am, and which you will never be. And this crap you pull on me with this situation that you would never dream of doing if you cared about your job and you do it to me constantly and over and over again. I am going to come out there and I am going to straighten your ass out when I see you."

"Do you understand me? I'm going to really make sure you get it. Then I'm going to turn around and come back to the office and burn all of your stuff. So you'd better be ready to meet with me, and the entire executive committee. We're all going to let you know just how we feel about what a rude little pig you really are. You are a rude, thoughtless little pig."