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.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
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?
Monday, March 31, 2008
a note from the other side....
So I haven't posted for a while because I have been so insanely busy with a GINORMOUS piece of litigation which is slowly sucking the life out of me as well as most of the other lawyers in the team.
It's great timing, coming up to review season, to be billing 11 hours a day but how sustainable is it long term? 'Not very' would be my answer.
And I have so much to fill you in on: the move of the retreat from Melbourne to Lorne (well that's not actually very interesting they just lied to us and changed it without telling anyone); Ben's official demotion back to Senior Associate (the office wide email was issued last week); my insomnia (which is RIGHT out of control and making me do strange things); the few but very promising dates I have had with a state public servant called Adam; and the fact I have developed an obsession with baking my own bread.
I will try to come back and post again soon but it's not looking good. Hope you're all well! xx
It's great timing, coming up to review season, to be billing 11 hours a day but how sustainable is it long term? 'Not very' would be my answer.
And I have so much to fill you in on: the move of the retreat from Melbourne to Lorne (well that's not actually very interesting they just lied to us and changed it without telling anyone); Ben's official demotion back to Senior Associate (the office wide email was issued last week); my insomnia (which is RIGHT out of control and making me do strange things); the few but very promising dates I have had with a state public servant called Adam; and the fact I have developed an obsession with baking my own bread.
I will try to come back and post again soon but it's not looking good. Hope you're all well! xx
Sunday, March 9, 2008
a weekend at lawne
OK, I know it's spelt Lorne, not Lawne but crikey, we did a good job trying to put the 'law' in Lorne this weekend, 'at home, together, at work'. When I say weekend, I really mean Thursday to Sunday morning. Question number one about staff retreats: why is the timing so weird? Surely they want us to bill so why not take us down Friday night and put us up somewhere really swanky and give us massages and pedicures to ease the pain of having to sacrifice our weekend?
Question number two is how is it possible to politely listen to three of the four partners in my team serenade the team with some 'golden oldies'... yet again? The first couple of times I watched the partners down a couple of bottles of what Rumpole so politely called 'Chateau Thames Embankment' and then break into song (without even a karaoke backing track) I thought it was endearing, in the same way you think your grandad spilling his coffee out of side of his mouth is endearing (but still requires intervention). After the third or fourth time, I wanted to scream 'you are NOT Tom Cruise and you're right, I have definitely lost that loving feeling'! This time I did manage to quietly move and pretend I was part of a more sober and better behaved team and I think some people did actually believe I was the new girl in the 'real estate' team for a while.
Surprisingly, it was Ben who made much of this retreat bearable. He has decided to throw caution to the wind and admit that now Uncle is back it is unlikely he will continue to hang on to partnership for much longer. So, like all good men, he has stopped trying. This meant that when the Meyer Briggs personality testing started he didn't want to indulge it and threw out some brilliant one-liners about people's level of extroversion or feeling-ness. Laughs all round.
And more importantly, the self declared defeat means my terrible attempt at scheming can remain just that and all I need to do is offer to help Ben by sharing some work with him so when he does inevitably build up his cleint base again, I can take the credit for it.
Question number two is how is it possible to politely listen to three of the four partners in my team serenade the team with some 'golden oldies'... yet again? The first couple of times I watched the partners down a couple of bottles of what Rumpole so politely called 'Chateau Thames Embankment' and then break into song (without even a karaoke backing track) I thought it was endearing, in the same way you think your grandad spilling his coffee out of side of his mouth is endearing (but still requires intervention). After the third or fourth time, I wanted to scream 'you are NOT Tom Cruise and you're right, I have definitely lost that loving feeling'! This time I did manage to quietly move and pretend I was part of a more sober and better behaved team and I think some people did actually believe I was the new girl in the 'real estate' team for a while.
Surprisingly, it was Ben who made much of this retreat bearable. He has decided to throw caution to the wind and admit that now Uncle is back it is unlikely he will continue to hang on to partnership for much longer. So, like all good men, he has stopped trying. This meant that when the Meyer Briggs personality testing started he didn't want to indulge it and threw out some brilliant one-liners about people's level of extroversion or feeling-ness. Laughs all round.
And more importantly, the self declared defeat means my terrible attempt at scheming can remain just that and all I need to do is offer to help Ben by sharing some work with him so when he does inevitably build up his cleint base again, I can take the credit for it.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
retreat!
The BCF staff retreat is this coming weekend.
Usually this means a weekend somewhere like Apollo Bay or Lorne and everyone drinks too much and then, hungover the next day, is forced to participate in 'trust' exercises. Of the you-fall-over-and-we-all-catch-you variety.
This year they've decided to do something a bit different and have booked out one of the hotels so we can all have a weekend in Melbourne 'at home, together, at work'. That's seriously the tag line for the retreat.
So we have been forced to sacrifice the ocean paddles for a tour of Melbourne's "secret laneways". I reckon if they're still secret from me now I don't really want to know about them.
And really, I don't want to be stuck down some pokey alley way, half cut, with a partner (or even worse Ben) breathing down my neck as we wait for the next teeny tiny bar to have enough room for more than two of us to sit and have a drink together. Not a great idea when over 100 lawyers work in the same place.
I am trying to work out how to get out of a night in substandard hotel accommodation when I have perfectly lovely 250 thread count sheets and all my creature comforts 'at home, alone, away from work'.
Usually this means a weekend somewhere like Apollo Bay or Lorne and everyone drinks too much and then, hungover the next day, is forced to participate in 'trust' exercises. Of the you-fall-over-and-we-all-catch-you variety.
This year they've decided to do something a bit different and have booked out one of the hotels so we can all have a weekend in Melbourne 'at home, together, at work'. That's seriously the tag line for the retreat.
So we have been forced to sacrifice the ocean paddles for a tour of Melbourne's "secret laneways". I reckon if they're still secret from me now I don't really want to know about them.
And really, I don't want to be stuck down some pokey alley way, half cut, with a partner (or even worse Ben) breathing down my neck as we wait for the next teeny tiny bar to have enough room for more than two of us to sit and have a drink together. Not a great idea when over 100 lawyers work in the same place.
I am trying to work out how to get out of a night in substandard hotel accommodation when I have perfectly lovely 250 thread count sheets and all my creature comforts 'at home, alone, away from work'.
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