•Why it earns a slot
The single phrase "I would prefer not to" has outlived nearly everything else written about office work in the 19th century, and the story earns it.
In Herman Melville's 1853 story, a Wall Street lawyer hires a quiet copyist named Bartleby, who gradually refuses every task with the phrase "I would prefer not to" until he refuses to work, to leave, and finally to eat, dying in prison. A closing rumor that he once handled dead letters reframes his passive refusal as a response to unbearable futility.
This distillation is written from the freely available original, which is always the better read when you have the time: gutenberg.org.