Unfortunately, for those of you who have been such kind supporters of my rantings, I am going to have to suspend operations for a little while. A couple of people are sniffing about and getting a bit too close for comfort . I will be back when things have calmed down a bit.
Keep lawyering!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
too far?
Following the strangeness of cake mail, things have largely gone back to normal here at BCF (well as normal as things ever get).
We have one week left of discovery, the affidavits are due with the Court on Monday. I feel strangely sad that the process is coming to an end. I know that it's not really coming to an end and that lodging the affidavits is actually just the beginning of the process but I am not sure I want to give up the wave of billable hours I am currently riding. It's a sweet sweet thing to be meeting budgets, exceeding production targets and generally being an all round favourite.
I had my performance review lodged and approved at 'exceeds expectations' today. I am being sent on the national 'earmarked for partnership' program which, unfortunately, is going to be held at a little resort in Noosa later in the year.
Ben also had his performance review scheduled for today but his was some time this afternoon and I have not seen him since. I offered to take him for a drink afterwards and I am expecting my phone to ring any minute now.
Or maybe he just went home, apparently someone left a copy of the latest lawyers' weekly with the ads for senior associate positions circled in red on his chair.
People are so unkind.
We have one week left of discovery, the affidavits are due with the Court on Monday. I feel strangely sad that the process is coming to an end. I know that it's not really coming to an end and that lodging the affidavits is actually just the beginning of the process but I am not sure I want to give up the wave of billable hours I am currently riding. It's a sweet sweet thing to be meeting budgets, exceeding production targets and generally being an all round favourite.
I had my performance review lodged and approved at 'exceeds expectations' today. I am being sent on the national 'earmarked for partnership' program which, unfortunately, is going to be held at a little resort in Noosa later in the year.
Ben also had his performance review scheduled for today but his was some time this afternoon and I have not seen him since. I offered to take him for a drink afterwards and I am expecting my phone to ring any minute now.
Or maybe he just went home, apparently someone left a copy of the latest lawyers' weekly with the ads for senior associate positions circled in red on his chair.
People are so unkind.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
cake mail
Sometimes things happen at BCFs that just make no sense, come out of the blue and for which no reasonable explanation can be found.
Today, I received a piece of cake in the mail.
A real actual slice of cake. It is a dark cake, quite thinly cut in an oblong shape (not a triangular wedge). It looks like a cross between chocolate cake and rye bread. It is wrapped in glad wrap and about the size of my hand. It came in a yellow envelope with no post mark, a 50 cent postage stamp and the address label was typed.
I am too scared to open it in case it is some sort of chemical death trap disguised as cake.
This is actually the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me. Ah the BCF, just when it was starting to make sense, someone sends you cake in the mail.
Today, I received a piece of cake in the mail.
A real actual slice of cake. It is a dark cake, quite thinly cut in an oblong shape (not a triangular wedge). It looks like a cross between chocolate cake and rye bread. It is wrapped in glad wrap and about the size of my hand. It came in a yellow envelope with no post mark, a 50 cent postage stamp and the address label was typed.
I am too scared to open it in case it is some sort of chemical death trap disguised as cake.
This is actually the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me. Ah the BCF, just when it was starting to make sense, someone sends you cake in the mail.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
the un-burgeoning of ben
A kind reader left a comment a little while ago offering himself as a suitor if my 'burgeoning' love affair with Ben did not work out. There were so many layers of difficulty with the statement that I chose to ignore until today.
For clarity sake, I would like to point out to my kind reader that none of the difficulties revolve around his offer and if things do in fact go awry (not specifcally with Ben but with romance generally), I will indeed drop him a line, in the very public forum of this blog.
The reason I have chosen to address this comment today is that things could not possibly have placed themselves FURTHER away from the idea of a burgeoning love affair today.
As you know, Ben and I are in discovery isolation at the moment, supervising junior lawyers and reviewing work. The hours are long, the work is repetitive and it is very difficult to stay awake. There is a lot of coffee and food from the caterers. We are in a small internal meeting room on the twentieth floor and it is just us in there all day every day.
The caterers made us a lentil salad for lunch today. And yes, you guessed it, the discovery room Ben and I have been working in has become a gas chamber. Lentils obviously do not sit well with Ben and the man is doing some seriously stinky farts. I have often wondered about the politics of farting in your own office (especially when someone else walk in directly afterwards - to warn or not to warn?) but in a shared workspace?! Unacceptable!
Rest assured, the man is becoming seriously unattractive in a hurry.
Add to that the fact that Adam is behaving like a model suitor (gallery trips and attempting to book a weekend away despite my long work hours)and Ben has most definitely un-burgeoned anything that my dear reader was alleging he had burgeoned.
For clarity sake, I would like to point out to my kind reader that none of the difficulties revolve around his offer and if things do in fact go awry (not specifcally with Ben but with romance generally), I will indeed drop him a line, in the very public forum of this blog.
The reason I have chosen to address this comment today is that things could not possibly have placed themselves FURTHER away from the idea of a burgeoning love affair today.
As you know, Ben and I are in discovery isolation at the moment, supervising junior lawyers and reviewing work. The hours are long, the work is repetitive and it is very difficult to stay awake. There is a lot of coffee and food from the caterers. We are in a small internal meeting room on the twentieth floor and it is just us in there all day every day.
The caterers made us a lentil salad for lunch today. And yes, you guessed it, the discovery room Ben and I have been working in has become a gas chamber. Lentils obviously do not sit well with Ben and the man is doing some seriously stinky farts. I have often wondered about the politics of farting in your own office (especially when someone else walk in directly afterwards - to warn or not to warn?) but in a shared workspace?! Unacceptable!
Rest assured, the man is becoming seriously unattractive in a hurry.
Add to that the fact that Adam is behaving like a model suitor (gallery trips and attempting to book a weekend away despite my long work hours)and Ben has most definitely un-burgeoned anything that my dear reader was alleging he had burgeoned.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
pay rise poem 2008
Oh yes, it's performance review season again! The hunters are out in full kit, their hounds sniffing out weak ones, guns poised and heads cocked.
It is incredible that the people who have drunkenly sung at me, called me 'not too bad for a skirt', bribed me with pash photos from September Shindig and revelled in fake pieces of art made from a colander and bulldog clips will now be deciding my fate for the next year. I imagine it's a little bit like dealing with kindergarten children at recess time.
Now admittedly, there is not too much to decide in relation to my fate because Peters' VGM, pro bono and my recent average of 9 1/2 billable hours a day thanks to discovery will put me in the 'exceeds expectations' category. But all this got me thinking - whatever they do with me, will it be enough?
The term elegant sufficiency used to be bandied about by ladies who wanted to indicate a satiated appetite. Can the same principles apply to pay rises? Is our hunger ever satiated?
And so, we come to this year's pay rise poem...
I want
a lot of things
I can't have
Louboutin shoes
Chanel and
gucci handbags
but at work
I want
and never get
a sense
of pride
of no regret
crime was
simple
even if unclean
commercial
litigation
is a different scene
the people
are nasty and
incredibly rich
despite my efforts
I'm in this
soul-less ditch
so pay me
more money
and i'll go away
but not
for too long
perhaps just a day
but no matter
how little
small or big
it won't be enough
so dance
little pig
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
the curse of competence
What I am about to say is going to sound very arrogant. Maybe because it is. Being good at your job is a total curse.
I have been smashing it at work recently. I have nailed discovery from every angle. I have revolutionised colour coded tagging systems and replacement coloured sheets for original files. I have charmed the litigation support unit and developed an awesome new database function in the software to make everyone's jobs way easier. I have even updated the litigation manual and refined the section on discovery so everyone can learn from my mistakes. (yes, it's true I too am finally learning from my mistakes).
Other people started to see that I was doing my job and doing it fairly effectively. Now they all want me to do work for them. Then a senior associate in our team resigned and guess who got all the files?
The only benefit of being so insanely busy is that I am going to have to find someone to help me with all the work.
His name is Ben. Oh sweet payback. Partnership here I come. Would it be a bit too obvious to write off his time and claim it as my own? Maybe if I started with a little bit here and there no-one would notice...
I have been smashing it at work recently. I have nailed discovery from every angle. I have revolutionised colour coded tagging systems and replacement coloured sheets for original files. I have charmed the litigation support unit and developed an awesome new database function in the software to make everyone's jobs way easier. I have even updated the litigation manual and refined the section on discovery so everyone can learn from my mistakes. (yes, it's true I too am finally learning from my mistakes).
Other people started to see that I was doing my job and doing it fairly effectively. Now they all want me to do work for them. Then a senior associate in our team resigned and guess who got all the files?
The only benefit of being so insanely busy is that I am going to have to find someone to help me with all the work.
His name is Ben. Oh sweet payback. Partnership here I come. Would it be a bit too obvious to write off his time and claim it as my own? Maybe if I started with a little bit here and there no-one would notice...
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
sleep, stress and date number three
Last night for the first time in ages I had a good night's sleep. At the risk of sounding somewhat Heath-Ledger-esque, sleeping when you are stressed can be incredibly difficult. As you know, I have been in absentia for the last couple of weeks, consumed by litigation strategies, affidavits as to documents and discovery. We are settling back into a bit of a pattern with some more regular hours now and the heart pounding, sweaty palm stress of the last few weeks is starting to fade.
Which leads to the issue of sleep. Obviously, when the stress and anxiety are less, the sleep is more. It's very easy when you're under pressure to get into a cycle of long hours, no exercise and bad office diet. You don't get to blow off steam at the gym because it's shut when you leave work and by the time you get home you're exhausted but can't stop your mind racing… so you have one glass of wine, which becomes two and then maybe three (which means you may as well finish the bottle) just so you can relax and let it all slide away into a light, fevered, broken night's sleep before you're up and do it all again with the aid of too much coffee.
We all know that this level of commitment to work is a little bit unhealthy but when you're in the middle of it feels like you have no choice, like you have to keep soldiering on and that the matter will fall apart if you're not there.
And how the hell do people maintain relationships in this madness? The person I spend most of my life with is Ben, at a conference room table with a pile of documents and bad office food I have learnt to seriously dislike (even the Moroccan lamb with cous cous doesn't cut it any more). Poor Adam has had to book date number three a week in advance in the hope I will be able to escape for dinner at the Panama dining room (excellent date venue) by planning my week properly. And how on earth am I meant to find time to prepare for date number three when I am going to be in the office all day Saturday?
Why don't time management courses properly address these issues?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
