From the Australian Lawyers' Weekly, a response from the law firm gadens lawyers (three-dimensional but capital-letter-challenged) to a questionnaire about the firm's planned attendance at a yearly job fair:

Who from your firm will be attending?

A representative selection of some of our finest and most earnest young solicitors may attend, subject to their daily billing targets. If the stall is unattended, it's because we're all doing something more important.

Will they be making any presentations or giving talks?

Unlikely. They're quite shy and very focused on their chargeable hours. We will be raffling off an interview every hour as usual, but this should be no cause for amusement or conversation.

What items/information will you have for graduates to take away?

We will be giving away a manila folder containing a sample time sheet, a list of after-hours dinner delivery services in the CBD, a guide to achieving optimum personal billing statistics during your summer clerkship and a bus ticket.

What are the three most important qualities you are looking for in a graduate employee?

A law degree; willingness to work till it hurts, then keep working; and the personality and personal values of a federal cabinet minister.

How many positions will you have available for graduates this year?

We prefer to hire in bulk to account for natural attrition and burnout. This year we are taking 150 graduates in the hope of there being six or seven of them left standing by February 2008. This is more than previously because we've been losing them faster than anticipated. Young people today just seem to be soft.

Thanks to Dylan Kissane for the pointer.