Update

To bring you up to speed:
- Jean-Claude has moved into our gorgeous little Fitzroy terrace which makes it feel even smaller.
- The cake mail mystery remains completely unsolved but has not been repeated or followed up with any other food-stuffs in an envelope.
- I have lured a big new client (who I obviously can't mention) and we have some juicy new matters that you will hear about soon.
- Ben has become my litigation lackey and is an excellent dogsbody now that I am dominating. His taste in ties is still excellent and his ability to tie a Windsor knot is second to none.
- I have been astounded, with a new intake of fresh faced clerks, at the lack of interest in earning stripes (we had to earn serious stripes before we could even photocopy, these folks want to write the advice to the client right away!!)
- Adam is brilliant (and surprisingly still around given I hardly ever see him) and there is the possibility of cohabitation some time in the not too distant future.
- The Christmas party is this weekend and they are putting us all on a bus out to the Yarra valley (not only will we be drunk but stuck with each other on a bus - how can you sneak out between mains and dessert with this arrangement?)

Anything I've left out?

I am sorry I have been in hiding for so long. There has been much activity at BCF, especially in the IT area. A comprehensive sweep of the system in June this year left everyone on edge. I am not sure how it worked (I still don't really understand how the internet works) but they essentially did spot checks on site access for all users. Anyone with regular visits to non-work related and suspicious sites was tagged for further investigation.

Shivers went up and down my spine when IT sent an email saying that 'blogger' was the site they were focussing on for the next two weeks and that they had identified a number of users who appeared to be running blogs during work time on 'difficult issues'. It was just revealed last week that the 'blogger' they had identified was a Senior Associate in the Sydney office who was running an erotic literature blog during work time. Obviously a no-no. It seems I am safe for now.

More detail on office events to come...

i'll be back

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!

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.

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.

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.

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