I would prefer not to

Polite refusal is the way to #staysane

Bartleby the Scrivener was Melville’s short story about an office boy who spent his days staring at a brick wall. When asked to work, to vacate the office, to get off the staircase, to cease sleeping in the doorway at night he famously replied ‘I would prefer not to’.

He dies in the end, preferring not to eat. Bartleby, though something of an extremist, …