…as a wave of sweet relief washes over me.

i don’t have to stress out anymore. i don’t have to stress out anymore about how much i hate my job. i don’t have to stress out anymore about how i’m going to break it to anyone at work that i was planning on quitting soon. i don’t have to stress out anymore about pretending to like my job or fit in in the law firm environment. i don’t have to worry anymore about how i am going to juggle the desire to plot my next step with caring enough about the firm job to get by.
i was laid off yesterday.

i got back from lunch yesterday afternoon. the only thing i had to do was finish entering my last few timesheets from march, and hope for more work to come down the pipeline. around 1:15 or so, i get a call from my big-boss-type person. he asks me if i’m in. i say yes, and ask if i need to come over to his office. he tells me no, that he’ll be by my office.

i try to look busy, since even though i had nothing to do i still thought it looked bad for me to be doing anything blatantly nonlegal. by then, i don’t know why i was worried…because i knew exactly what was about to happen. i [not-so] stealthily checked above the law to see if there were any reports about layoffs from my firm. there weren’t. no matter. i knew my head was on the chopping block, since wheneer big-boss-partner assigns me work, he makes me come over to his office. he was coming to mine instead, which made it a special occasion.

i was steeling myself for the ax. i was nervous, but i couldn’t tell if i was more nervous about facing my boss as he laid me off, or about the slight possibility i wasn’t being laid off. i had been dreaming about getting laid off for months now, and concretely plotting an exit plan for weeks, so i didn’t want to get my hopes up for nothing.

it takes about fifteen minutes for him to get there. i knew i was being let go when my boss shows up in his power suit, with another guy in a power suit who i had never seen before in my life. the other guy had a sheaf of papers. i greet them. they start blathering about the economy, and i’m like, “yeah, i know. the economy sucks.” (that’s what i said. sucks. and i started cracking up.) they told me that there was a reduction-in-force, and that my job was one of the ones affected. i told them okay, that i understood. i took the papers, and the unfamiliar guy told me about the two months’ severance, and the choice between leaving that day and staying a month to finish my matters.

(matters? i wanted to laugh. i didn’t have any matters. things had been dead since i got there.)

they left. it did take a few minutes to process it…that was it. i showed up in the morning grumpy that i was going to have to keep going to that job for another few months until i quit, and suddenly i was free of it.

sure, it was shocking to find out on such short notice that it was my last day, but mostly i felt relieved. i didn’t have to be in the closet anymore about the fact that i was making my exit plan. i didn’t have to pretend to care about corporate bankruptcy anymore. i didn’t have to pretend to be happy as a big firm associate anymore.

the rest of the afternoon i spent cleaning up my office and tying up what little i had left to tie up. i saw a couple of the first-years…one of them came to my office to check on me, since i hadn’t been at the Emergency Firmwide Meeting. she was safe. good for her, since she seemed to like the job a lot more than i did. same with the first-year around the hall from me…he was safe, too.

the toughest part about yesterday afternoon was the same as the toughest part about the job: the hiding. all my friends know that i’m glad this happened. at work, i at least had to act a bit sad that i was leaving. if i were the only one laid off, i’d have felt no shame about dancing in the hallways and being outwardly happy that i had been sent packing. however, a significant percentage of associates and staff had been laid off with me, and i didn’t want to disrespect, annoy, or offend them by showing how happy i was to be free of the job.

one of my friends said it best when she likened being laid off to a breakup after the relationship had soured…it was bad for everyone, and one party had to do it. it was weird for me, since i haven’t been dumped since i was sixteen. [...and haven't been laid off since i was 14, but that was completely different since i actually liked the job i had then.] that’s the only part i find weird about it, the fact that they controlled when i ended my stint there, and not me. however, i’m not going to focus on that technicality. i’m going to focus on the good…on the fact that i have two months’ severance, i don’t have to worry about money right now, i don’t have to worry about my job right now, and i can start thinking about what i’m doing next, without stressing about how much i hate my job.

friday night!

i’m not spending a friday night in, reading up on programs for getting a master’s degree in computer science.

that is not what i’m doing at all.

i am definitely not crunching the numbers in my head, seeing how much it would cost me to get a computer science degree, and thinking of how much longer i’d have to work at my current job to set aside enough money to go to school again. i am not hitting my head against the all-too-correct proposition that there’s no way to simultaneously be a biglaw attorney and go back to school.

i am not allowing myself to feel completely okay with the fact that i’m spending way too much of my time when i don’t have projects thinking about computer-related things, and i did not spend any time this week coding python at work. i definitely haven’t spent more time this week frustrated about the fact that i don’t know enough about computers to get a job in that field than i spent frustrated about how unfulfilled i am at my current job.

no, this is not what i’m doing at all. none of this is the case.

a freeing realisation

it finally sunk in recently that it’s not natural, it’s not logical, to spend every day wishing i could be laid off so i could start anew. i’ve been doing that every day for the last few months, and it’s not okay. i need to make my own reality.

that’s right: i have finally admitted to myself that i am not going to last four or five years in biglaw. it’s not going to happen. i hate my job when i have nothing to do, because i’m freaking out about getting fired and feeling like i’m wasting my time there. i hate my job when i do have work to do, because the vast majority of the work i do is faceless and unfulfilling. either way, i’m miserable because i’m working with a bunch of people who live and breathe work…and who expect me to be like them.

i finally let myself start to dream recently. what if… what if i got a job with a public interest agency? what if i got a job with a tech startup? what if i got a job doing legal work for any of a million things more interesting than what i’m doing now? what if i got a job doing temporary doc review until i figured out what in the legal or nonlegal world i want to do for the long term? what if i did any of a million things that didn’t force me to play the role of some butt-kissing lackey who is willing to sign her life away to make partner someday?

i can’t play the role for four or five years like i originally intended. i suddenly feel more motivated to do a good job at work, but only in order to stay on everyone’s good side and possibly get a good reference sometime in the future. i finally occasionally crack a smile at work nowadays, since i have admitted to myself that it’s okay to scrap this plan and change course.

it won’t be easy, of course. the economy stinks, and jobs are hard to come by. but, they’re out there. furthermore, i’m still buried in student loan debt, and there’s no other job that is going to let me pay off the loans quite so quickly, much less allow me to goof off so much. but, i realised when my hatred of work was consuming me on my recent weekend trip that such freedom is meaningless if i can’t enjoy it due to how unhappy my job makes me.

i’m too young and bright to admit defeat. i can’t give up the rest of my twenties to a job that i can’t stand, a job that expects me to be willing to drop everything and worship at its feet whenever it begs me to.

still no work…

things are still amazingly slow.

i had one night a few weeks ago when i had to be at work until 2am. i spent fourteen hours working on a project that had to be done today: fourteen thoroughly nonbillable hours.

sometimes i’m freaking out about having so few billable hours that i’m going to be canned after my performance review at the end of the year. i entered my last few hours from february, and i didn’t have the wherewithal to look at how many hours i billed this month. it’s low, dangerously low. i can’t imagine how bad it would be if i actually wanted to stay here for the long haul and make partner someday. the worry is bad enough for someone just biding her time until the loans are paid off.

other times, i look at all the layoff announcements on above the law like they’re the sexiest pornography on the internet. i daydream about how happy i’ll be–and how much busier i’ll be–if they peeled off the band-aid, laid me off already, and put me out of all of these worries about not making my hours and being canned for “performance reasons.”

this lack of work is making me absolutely crazy.

work?

i billed seven hours today.

by all law firm logic, that would be a light day. but, these aren’t logical times. my department is completely dead. seven hours is more than i’ve billed since i got back from my holiday a week and a half ago.

this is driving me crazy. at least when i have a full day’s work, or at least most of a full day’s work, i’m distracted. i have something to focus my mind on. i have a problem, i have a deadline, and i have the motivation of having to face the wrath of an angry partner if i don’t find the answer in time.

it seems to me a paradox. this is not what i intended to do with my law degree, and part of me sometimes wonders whether having to do as little of this as possible should make me happy. but, the reality of it is, it doesn’t. the less work i get, the more expendable i am. if i become too expendable, i’m out of a job, and i’m left wondering how i am going to pay off my law school loans. the whole point of taking this job for a few years was to stay out of that situation, and the fact that i’m getting so little work that i have to become so fixated on this does not make me happy.

no work

two days until i have to return to the office. i’ve been gone since christmas eve, faithfully checking my crackberry and making sure i’m not missing any urgent projects.

i haven’t missed any urgent projects. i haven’t missed any projects at all. in fact, i haven’t gotten any projects.

on one hand, i’m happy that i haven’t had to do any work over this last week and a half. i was hoping to spend this time doing as little work as possible, spending the time with people important to me who live too far away for me to see them on a regular basis. i was hoping to spend this time on vacation, and vacation is how i have spent it.

on the other hand, i’m paranoid. a week and a half without work is just that, a week and a half without work. if i had faith in my bosses being merciful and considerate, i’d just assume they were being respectful of my vacation time. however, i’ve trained myself to be pessimistic and paranoid, and i feel useless and expendable.

that feeling is nothing new. i feel useless and expendable on all the days i spend in my office without getting any new assignments, but it’s always more relaxing to be out of the office sleeping until noon every day instead of being in the office, wearing business casual and perched in a desk chair by 8:30 am. however, i usually don’t go a week and a half without even a short bit of work to do. i’ve already resigned myself to not making hours this year, but beyond that i can’t afford to be a casualty of the economy.

not yet, anyway.

vacation

i haven’t been to work in a week. i check my crackberry less and less each day that i’m out of the office. i still need to enter my time, but the passive-aggressive part of me is waiting until the last possible minute. so, i’ll do it in my tired, half-asleep stupor tomorrow afternoon.

for now, i feel free for the first time since early september. i know it’s temporary, but it’s nice to get a small taste of life without the law firm breathing down my neck.

happy new year!

it’s a trap!

it’s christmas.

i have no work to do. the office is closed, the courts are closed, and i am several states away. still, i have checked my crackberry no less than five times today just to see if anyone has thrown any assignments at me. i went into this job expecting to have my holidays spoiled, and it still seems unreal that i have not had any days off spoiled too badly yet.

i hate what this job is trying to turn me into.

blown?

i almost blew my cover today.

i was chatting with my secretary, and i made the mistake of mentioning that i ran into a friend of mine during my lunch break, and that this friend was on his way to court. this particular friend is a young lawyer, just a few years out of law school. she knew that, and responded:

“at least he’s going to court. you won’t be going to court for a long time, will you?”

i agreed that no, i wouldn’t be. i should have left it at that, shrugged it off, and changed the subject. instead, i mentioned that i had the experience of going to court during one of my law school internships. my eyes lit up, my voice got excited, and i told her all about it. it’s probably one of the few times she has ever seen me looking completely alive at work.

she’s not obtuse. she picked that up immediately, and asked me, “then, what are you doing in this place?? [pause] was it the money?”

i froze for a second, because i had no idea how to respond to that. i tell everyone outside of work that i plan to be at the firm no longer than it takes me to pay off my school debt, but of course i don’t tell anyone at work that. everyone at work just assumes that i’m there for the same reason every other lawyer is–to work insane hours, climb the corporate ladder, make a bag of money, and make partner one day. i had never been asked point-blank by someone at work why i was there.

finally, i shrugged and responded that i had to pay my loans somehow. i almost followed that comment up with the fact that i planned to be out off there as soon as the loans were paid off, but i managed to bite my tongue just in time. i awkwardly and abruptly changed the topic to something else…but i am still freaking out about whether she was on to me for what i left unsaid.

return on investment

i’ve been working this job for three months, since September. i’ve been storing up rants about it, planning to let them rot quietly away, and keep them off of the internet. so, what changed my mind? why did i finally start this thing, instead of sticking to my plan of silence?

i recently attended a talk about tips for making partner. i did it to keep up appearances. work has been extremely slow lately, so i had no excuse not to be there. most of it was the kind of business babble i expected to hear: networking, mentoring, et cetera. however, one suggestion made at the talk was the last straw.

they were discussing how to meet clients, and saying that one of the most effective ways to get clients was to get involved in outside-of-work activities. then, one of the panelists presented a two-step process for choosing an outside-of-work involvement.

the first step was to make sure it was something chock-full of potential clients, successful businesspeople and the like. if it wasn’t, they said, then there wasn’t sufficient return-on-investment to make it worth the time to devote to it outside of work. [yes. they actually used that term, return-on-investment.] only the second step was to ask yourself if it was something you were interested enough in to stay involved in it for the five to six years that it would take to climb up the ladder, become an officer, and siphon off the potential clients.

never in my short time at the firm has it been clearer that this is not a place i can stay long-term. i cannot relate to that mindset. i spend time in activities outside of work in order to meet interesting people, keep my mind engaged, and prevent my life from becoming nothing but work and sleep. if i’m getting those kinds of benefits out of it, then i’m getting what i want from the time i spend with an outside-of-work activity.

in other words, i don’t join an activity or a club for it to help fuel workaholism. i join them to avoid becoming a workaholic. any environment that does not appreciate that mindset is not one i can stay in for very long.

having it put in such clear terms what the mindset of my colleagues is makes it even more obvious to me that i don’t fit in there. of course, it will not benefit my ability to pay my student loans in a timely manner if anyone at work learns that my outlook is nothing like theirs–especially not in this economy. but, i needed to get this–and my other frustrations about being in a large law firm environment–off my chest. hence…this blog.