Contest 2 - Shitty Bosses

Ok, here's contest number two. I have some good stories regarding my newest boss. So, in the spirit of giving and whatnot (I'm such a giver) I offer the following contest:

If you send me a good boss story, I'll post it (without identifying characteristics) AND, wait for it:

I'll answer any questions you may have on how to deal with an unruly and uppity boss.

Yup, you could not only get your e-mail published, but get your problem solved.

Is there any better contest in the world?

I think not.

E-mail's on the left hand side, under the links. I mention this because one of my retarded friends said 'hey, you didn't include your e-mail in your last contest.'

Yeah, that's the type of friends I have.

Contest

I'm in the process of writing my last Will and Testament. So I decided that I would have a contest. The rules are simple. E-mail me as to why you think you should be in my Will, which I assure you is an honor of the highest magnitude. If I like your reasoning, I might, maybe, leave you something when I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Oh, don't ask for money. Well, you can ask, but I doubt highly you'll like what I leave you.

So hit me up, I'll accept submissions through Sunday. The Will goes up on Monday, April 19.

Just Another Rat Looking for Some Cheese

Fire falls, winds blow
There's trouble and it won't go
I'd really like to help you but you know
Truth twists, lies dance
Money money greed chant
Let's take a little more before we go
Cause we won't be back again
No, we won't be back again

~Liars Dance, Robert Plant

I received an offer from the firm I interviewed with over the past few weeks. I'm still a little stunned by it all. I heard nothing, absolutely nothing, for 6 months, since my hours got cut and I took the detour down the 'would you like fries with that' road.

Now, of course, I had to fuck with the wife a bit. I wouldn't be me if I didn't. And before you get too critical, my wife knew exactly what she was getting when she took me down off that shelf in the great grocery store of dating and had me scanned, bagged and tossed in her trunk. I can only presume my wife feels that she has committed some great sin that I am unaware of and I am penance for that sin. Whatever, her problem, not mine.

Anyway. I had my last interview. It was really short. I walked out of there pretty unsure of whether or not I was going to get an offer. I immediately called my wife and gave her the rundown. I told her I didn't think I was getting an offer.

As we chatted back and forth all day, I told her I was taking a philosophical view of the whole thing. I got interviewing experience, put myself out there, and hey, it didn't pan out.

Until 4:15 that afternoon when I received the offer.

I went home, and the amount of relief I felt was overwhelming. My wife gets home from work just after I returned from the dog park with my insane puppy. That is not a sexual reference by the way.

"Ok, I have a nice speech all worked out, I don't want you to say anything, I want you to just listen because I know how you are."

Now, to be fair, I had already decided that I was going to fuck with her a bit. But this just sealed the deal.

"Ok." And I did play up the 'stern, pensive, stoic, 'I'm really hurting on the inside but trying hard not to show it' look.' Yeah, I'm a dick, I know. So we went out to dinner (because I was too upset to cook, again, see previous line). My wife did a great job with her speech in trying to lift my spirits. It's not her fault that they didn't need lifting.

To my credit, I kept a straight face. For about an hour. She then says 'Don't forget to get your thank you notes out.'

"Yeah, you're right, but first I should probably get out my counter-offer to the offer they made me today."

And the look on her face was worth it. She followed up with a few 'you're such a prick's and 'what an asshole's. But she was happy.

Now here's where it gets weird. And I'm still not 100% sure why it got this way.

Yesterday, I started feeling sentimental, nostalgic even. As I've previously written, I did get blindsided by my boss last July - right before my birthday and vacation to boot - but I couldn't shake the feeling.

I actually started to remotely entertain the idea that I might not leave. Maybe it was nothing more than the remnants of misplaced loyalty.

I also had a conversation with another lawyer I'm friendly with yesterday morning. And she said 'oh, you're going back to the grind of firm life?' And I thought about that.

On the one hand, this place has quite a few memories for me. I was standing out front when I listened to the voice mail from the doctor that my dad had died. I was sitting in this office when my wife and I first started talking. I learned how to be a lawyer in this very seat. And like it or not, I do identify myself, to an extent, as a lawyer. Yeah, part of me was born here.

But it went deeper than that. I figured out what it was.

Fear. I'm scared. My whole professional life has been spent in the same place. You get used to things, you know? Those things may not be great objectively, but you find a way to make it work in your day to day life. You get comfortable. Granted, you may be comfortable in a 'I'm on a couch in a double wide' comfortable, but it is a measure of comfort nonetheless.

And fear is a funny thing, once it starts to get a hold of you.

Am I good enough for this new job?

Do I deserve this opportunity?

Am I going to do well?

And that part of me whispers 'No, no you're not, and you know it.' And there it is. Your worst fears realized. At least in your mind.

You're not good enough.

It's going to be daunting. New work, new workplace, new people, new boss. Bosses, plural, actually.

But as I mentioned in a previous post, it's like Babe and Bill said, 'everyone is scared.' Are you scared? What are you afraid of? Go ahead, look inside. What do you see? What keeps you up at night? Makes you sweat, makes you shake? Makes you doubt?

Over seven years. I once had a loaded gun pointed at me. I would like to tell you that in that moment everything flashed before my eyes. It didn't.

Which is what makes this more difficult in some ways. Everything comes back to you.

The victories.

The defeats.

The hopes.

The dreams.

The disappointments.

All right there for my viewing pleasure. I'm actually amazed at all the things I've done.

But alas, I know I'm returning to the grind. Living my professional life six minutes at a time. The stress, the desire to excel. At my age, I thought I'd be done paying my dues. And yes, that's a bit of an entitlement complex on my part, one I've had to get over in the past six months.

And letting go can be one of the most difficult things. When I took the job I have currently, I wanted to succeed. I wanted to make it work. And for a while, it did. But ultimately, you reach dead ends in that maze called life. And this is certainly a dead end. Not because my boss is a jerk, which for the most part he isn't, but because the industry is dying.

My time is running out.

And I can only bang my head against a dead end so many times. The scrapes, bruises and blood a testament to my fear. My fear of leaving that which I've known. People fall into one of two categories: people who love change, and those who hate it. I think you can guess what category I'm in.

So time to turn around, and head back to the start of this path in my maze. Now that I stand at that crossroads, there's not really too many paths to choose from. But that elusive scent of cheese is on the air.

And I'm just another hungry rat looking for his next meal.

Who claims no man is an island
While I land up in jeopardy
More distant from you by degrees
I walk this shore in isolation
And at my feet, eternity
draws ever sweeter plans for me


I know why, I know why
Crazy, on a ship of fools, ah, crazy on a ship of fools
turn this boat around, back to my loving ground
Ship of fools

~Robert Plant, 'Ship of Fools*'

Plus, there's one major change I need to make before my next job. And it is a daunting one. One that will be the subject of my next blog.

*I can't tell you why, but whenever I knowingly face change, I pull out Robert Plant/Led Zeppelin albums. Maybe because it's the soundtrack of my misspent youth and there's great comfort in the familiarity of it. Plus it's just great music.

Opportunity Knocks, Part Two

Oh boy. Had my second and third interviews this morning. Managed to come across as only functionally retarded. The last interviewer said that she was going to walk into the partner's office and recommend hiring me. They would then speak with the partner I interviewed with last week. They 'wanted to move quickly on this.'

So, yeah, I guess it went pretty well. Now the hard part. The waiting.

Yikes.

Could this be the return of the Last Emperor? Perhaps. I've never been a fan of suspense. Today is merely reconfirming that position.

Think good thoughts. Or just refrain from thinking evil ones in my general direction. Perhaps just for a couple of days.

Opportunity Knocks...

So, after six months I had an interview for a law job. Like a full time one. I think it went pretty well, the partner that interviewed me said they would be setting up a second interview with a second partner in the office I am applying to work out of.

I was asked to interview the day after my previous post. Coincidence?

I think so.

Here's to hoping something breaks my way, I'll keep you up to date.

Now, you may be asking yourself, 'why does Night and Day' even need a job?

A fair question. No doubt the millions have been rolling in since I started this blog. Think of me like one of those idiots that wins the lottery but keeps working anyway. I need something to do. Yeah, that's it.

Night and Day, Too

Since I first conceived doing this particular blog, the idea was to outline the differences and similarities between the two current jobs I hold. I think they tend to be on opposite sides of the spectrum, so I figured there would be some interesting insights to be gained from one versus the other.

And maybe some universals. Who knows? I do notice that some of my posts are personal in nature and beyond the scope of my job, and in addition, I have quite a few stories of fiction that I work on from time to time. So, in order to keep this blog more in focus to its original version, I have started Night and Day, Too.

That blog will have the fiction and personal stuff, whereas I'll continue to post work related views here, such as 'Do Unto Others...'

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the new blog, and continue to enjoy this one.

Regards,

Night and Day

Do Unto Others...Before They Do Unto You.

The above title is an actual response I made to a question on a board I post on. The question was 'Sum up in one line what you learned in 2009.'

And I posted 'Do Unto Others...Before They Do Unto You.'

An hour or so later, I looked at it and though 'wow, that's really snarky, even coming from you.'

So where did it come from?

I've worked for the same firm pretty much since I finished up a clerkship. It's been 8 long years. During 7 of those 8 years, we were a very busy firm. There were a couple of cases that kept things moving along.

One of the things about practicing law that you find out pretty quickly is your time is never really your own. Sure, you can make plans, look forward to vacations, and anticipate holidays with friends and families. But there is always the potential for something to come along and ruin your best laid plans.

The flip side of this, at least, what you're told when you have to cancel yet another evening out, is that you're paying your dues. Since time immemorial, this is how the legal business worked. The new guys get shit on while the old guys enjoy the fruits of their labors. What many people don't realize is that for a lot of years, Law was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. The idea being that the partners brought in the business and the lower level associates did all the grunt work, cranking out the billable hours til they would one day be elevated to partner.

Starting in the 80's, this whole paradigm that ran the heart of the legal community changed. It became more and more of a business. This is not to say it hasn't happened in other industries, I would suspect that it has, but it outlined what has become a glaringly flaw in the law. Or at least, so I thought. And that flaw?

No loyalty. Now many will say that 'Honor Among Thieves' is always skitchy at best, non-existent at worst.

Last year, at around this time, we were wrapping up our largest case. Waiting in line were a bunch of cases that I had kept alive pending the time to wrap those up. So for the next two months, I was pretty busy finishing up a lot of cases that I hadn't had the time to finish. Then May and June hit, and I started saying things to my wife like 'honey, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do this week.' Keep in mind, this was six months into the recession. Lawyers were losing their jobs, summer associates were actually being paid NOT to work, and firms were starting to go under.

It all came to a head in late July. My boss comes in my office and tells me 'I'm cutting your hours, I'm switching you to an hourly pay, no vacation, no sick time.'

Bam. For the first five years of my work here, I missed numerous holidays and didn't take a proper vacation. In fact, the first vacation I took as an employee was when I got married the year before. All that paying dues, down the drain. And the really insidious side of it is such a move wouldn't be necessary if we had the work. So by switching me to hourly, it was a double whammy. Not enough work to justify a salary means probably not enough work on an hourly basis to make up the difference. I figured it out the other day and I make 66% of what I made a year ago. A lot of people would think that's a good thing, because I'm a lawyer, but what people don't realize is how shitty the pay is for most lawyers. And ultimately, I'm lucky to have a job. I've sent countless resumes and not received one call. I've heard stories that for each job listing, hundreds of resumes are received within minutes. That's how bad things are.

Hence, I couldn't find anything to supplement my income and went back to the only other skill I have, cooking. Cranking it out at $8 an hour. Long weekends. I work more now than I did at the height of practicing law and make far less.

Loyalty. Where did it go? I don't know, but ultimately, I guess I learned the hard way what so many have learned by my age: you have to be careful whom you are loyal to. And I find this carries over into my other job too. So I am going to guess that this is a universal workplace thing. Loyalty. To whom and how much?

I almost gave notice at my cooking job last week.

Generally, there were three of us working on Friday and Saturday nights. The typical Friday, I was 'long relief' - I stay until the closer cuts me, usually between 10 and 11. I close Saturdays. Anyway, that was the way it was supposed to go. At least four weekends in a row, I would walk in for what I thought was a short shift, only to find out, whoops, you're here til the end.

The 'final straw' was New Years Eve. I offered to work the short part of the shift (as opposed to being off) because I didn't want to strand any of the guys I work with. I was supposed to come in, work about a 5-8, and be out of there. A third guy was supposed to be in.

Well, I show up and of course, no third guy, and it's just me and the closer. Meaning, I was stuck there til around 10:45, and the wife was too tired to come out at that point. The very next night I walk in to find I was closing. I also received a call that Wednesday to come in (at the last minute) and help out. And I did. I'm a loyal guy, I don't like to see any of my coworkers get screwed.

But New Year's came and I realized: why am I being loyal? I'm being told one thing, then ending up doing another, one requiring far more effort.

And so I'm forced to change my approach. I think that's the toughest thing we sometimes have to do, is change what we are in order to survive. Sure, I could go on being loyal, waiting for some imaginary time when it would all pay off. When I would be recognized for all the sacrifices.

When my father, despite my urgings to the contrary, didn't have health insurance, or a plan for my mom's care when he died, I said I would step up. I did, and it has been the ruin of my financially. But at least I was loyal.

When my law job needed me there, weekends, nights, holidays, and I had to beg off plans, I did. And it has been to my detriment. I even turned down several opportunities to go elsewhere because I wanted to finish what I started and I didn't want to leave my firm in a lurch during the biggest case we had at the time, but now those opportunities are no where to be found. But at least I was loyal.

When my cook job needed me there, weekends, nights, holidays, and I had to beg off plans, I did. And it was to my detriment. But at least I was loyal.

The funny thing about it is 'I.' I was loyal, yet none of the foregoing were very loyal to me in hindsight. So this year, I've decided if I'm fortunate enough to get an opportunity to move elsewhere, I'm taking it, and not looking back. I have no doubt if any of the foregoing needed me gone, they wouldn't hesitate.

So imagine my surprise when my wife mentioned to me last week how the office manager and partner met because they were worried if there was going to be enough work for the attorneys at her firm.

Loyalty indeed. It's a rare, yet dangerous, commodity.

If I have one resolution this year, it is to be loyal to those who deserve that loyalty, because misplaced loyalty can turn out horribly, and often does.

So this year, do unto others before they do unto me. A bit snarky, perhaps, but apparently the other way isn't working. And we grow during times of hardship. I just wish this was one way in which I didn't need to 'grow,' but I guess such comforts are beyond my reach right now.