As a partner, I want to share something I try to live by. As you grow in your career, you will come across behavior (and also often endure), whether directed at you or at others, that you will not agree with. Most of the times, because of the situation, you will not be able to change it or even speak up against it.

In those moments, it is important not to forget how the behavior made you feel.

As you move forward and your role and influence grow, make a conscious effort not to repeat the same behavior. Try to adopt a change which addresses the behavior that bothered you. Every change can make a real difference to real people, even if it's not a large number of people.

Becoming senior should not be about carrying forward the frustrations of your early years and then taking revenge on unsuspecting people to placate the younger self. It should be an opportunity to make things a little easier for others, even though you will definitely not directly benefit from the change in behavior or culture.

Over time, you will learn, grow, and improve. The way you treat people should grow with you.

Doing this will not make you known, or popular, but will help you sleep better at night.

Look, I am OP of the post you replied to. All I'm saying is, not everything is in hands of the partner/PA/SA and there are so many variables and out of control factors, due to which they behave the way they do. The mail which got forwarded late to you, sometimes the other guy did not even realise you weren't marked or didn't even see or couldn't get time to even assess and forward you. Something urgently was asked to be made and didn't get reviewed, probably someone came with even more urgency or some other thing in same matter took precedence. Understaffed on a matter, no team recruitment due to P&L issue. I can go on but this is what is real life issue in this profession and this is why despite all associates cribbing about it, they do exactly same when they get promoted. At the same time, are everyone doing best they can? The answer would be somethings can be better. Not everything. Generally every senior tries to ensure that their team is protected and not get screwed (and i would definitely acknowledge that it's not universal) but so many times things are beyond them. And one pretty honest answer (at least for me), seniors do notice when someone picks up load without cribbing and ensure that the same person is also sometimes given lighter assignment or more likely, extra bonus or some other opportunities. No one would like to lose a good person and there's always some try to give them a semblance of better things till you can. The trick always is to see the person and figure out what works for them best in terms of reward, for someone its money, for someone its independence, for someone its nature of work and so forth and give them that as acknowledgement. Till the time the profession can be structurally improved, but still in line with market expectation. All associates cribbing about tight timeline ask for turnaround in same time, once they go in-house. So yeah, lot many things can be done but its not universal that seniors are out to kill happiness of juniors.

The PA in my team was one such associate who went on to become a PA and made our lives a lot better. Often shielding us from the Partner. The SA on the other hand continued the generational trauma, threw us under the bus all the time and did all those things listed in this post.

I come in at 11.30 but expect my juniors to come in much earlier.

I force my juniors to stay in office, even if there is no work because one must not leave before their seniors.

I will sit on an email that was sent to me on Monday, and will only allocate it to my junior on a Friday night, with a due date of Saturday morning (even if it is only due on the coming Wednesday). Thereafter, I will sit on the work product only on Tuesday evening and then chide my junior for not following instructions that I never gave. Instructions are something I never give; or if I give, they are too vague, something which an A0 won't have any context on. I will also tell my junior that "this was not done" when the junior has not received any instructions to that effect!

On Wednesday mid day the work would be due, so the entire night of the junior will be eaten by me and of course, I will create chaos, confusion and anxiety on Wednesday morning. I will make my junior take prints for something (that should have otherwise been done by the office boy). I will then go on to hog credit for the entire work in front of the partner. Ofcourse, if there is a fuck up, that would be blamed on the junior.

I will often shout at the junior for no other reason than to show that I am very "senior" (all this while nobody outside the firm knows me).

I am an SA/PA at a law firm. I am very senior.