five tips for staying awake during long conference calls annoyingly scheduled immediately after lunch

Today, I have a 1 1/2 hour conference call scheduled immediately following lunchtime.  This call is a drafting session, which is particularly painful (i.e., boring).  We have these calls for this particular client at relatively regular intervals -- every 4-6 weeks or so.  Here is the thing, though.  Always, ALWAYS without fail, the call is scheduled for a day I am sleep deprived.  Last night I was up late working, but sometimes I am just up late fretting and stressing about something, or I am exhausted from a weekend of working on the house, or A had a school project due that kept us up late, or whatever.  So, I have developed the following strategies for staying awake.  I cannot take full credit for these -- some of them are Kathy's.  But some are all mine.

1.  Don't eat too much.  Not only does the food make you sleepy, but being hungry actually keeps me awake. 
2.  Don't get too hungry.  I know this kind of conflicts with the first one, but a drop in blood sugar can be a dangerous thing.  You have to strike just the right balance.  Sometimes it helps to snack continuously through the call.
3.  Drink two Diet Cokes with your lunch.  Not only does the caffeine help, but needing to go to the bathroom also helps.
4.  Stand up.  This is a good one if you are in your own office, but is less effective for live meetings or conference calls in your boss's office.
5.  Thing about something that is actually interesting.  This is a tough one, because it requires you to not pay attention.  Use sparingly! 

The problem with this particular call is that it is in my boss's office.  I see him doing all of these things -- standing, eating, etc.  But I am limited, because I want to seem professional and wandering around his office in the middle of the call does not seem all that professional to me.  Once, I just broke down and asked if I could get coffee in the middle of the three hour call.  He said yes. 

head hangy

I spent some time debating the title of this post.  I'm not really sure if it's spelled hangey or hangy, but it's supposed to be pronounced like the word hang with a long e at the end.  Just so you know.

The phrase "head hangy" is one Kathy made up, and is essentially an unpleasant task, hanging over your head (hence the name) that colors your entire mood -- often, without you even realizing it.  You know the type.  You are cranky for days, sometimes weeks, and then you give the presentation, confront the family member, make the doctor's appointment, do your taxes, whatever, and suddenly, you are light and free and fun to be around again. 

I have had so many head hangies over the last two weeks that I've been snappish, cranky, and stressed.  Anxious and sleep deprived.  All manner of lovely things that make the mornings go really smoothly at our house (haha).  Finally, I realized how many head-hangies I had, and started diligently trying to get some of them off my head.  I also made a concerted effort to drink coffee before speaking, which also helps immeasurably.

Just when I finally managed to clear all the head hangies, I was informed that I have due diligence over the next ten to fourteen days -- which includes this weekend and Memorial Day weekend -- except that I have no idea when the documents will be provided.  It could be any time today, any time over the weekend, or any time on Monday.  (For you non-lawyer types, due diligence involves massive piles of documents provided by the other side, all of which must be read by a lawyer to make sure that the client will still want whatever transaction to go forward.  It is often mind-numbing, but you can't actually allow your mind to go numb, or you will probably miss something crucial.  If you are really lucky, you get to summarize everything you read in a 200 page memo.)

two months in - an action plan

In the last post, I gave myself a 3.6 out of 10 on the scale of work-life balance. Which, I say again, is pretty abysmal. I committed to developing an action plan so that my precious few non-work hours didn't slip away from me.  Well, my friends, the time has come to commit to that action plan publicly, in front of you.  This is mostly for my own self, to hold me accountable, but if anyone has suggestions, they would be appreciated in the comments!

Also, sorry about the lack of pictures, but this post is very serious.  Also I only had a short amount of time to work on it.

1. Gardening. Just so you know, the lawn is no longer a foot tall.  I mean, it's a good 8 inches again, but not a foot, and it's been raining all week.  Kathy and I have decided a good way to handle this is that one day a week, when I can get out on time, I'll mow while she cooks dinner.  Usually one of us cooks and the other bops around the kitchen chatting, so this is a small sacrifice of some family time together, but we make a point of sitting down as a family for dinner each night, so we will have to catch up then.  Also, C has baseball games each Saturday morning, so when it's our weekend with the kids, I'll stay home while the rest of the crew goes to the baseball game, so I can do the other gardening -- weeding, mulching, planting, etc.  I bought a flat of annuals for some fun color and we actually have an enormous amount of mulch left over from last year stashed in various places, so I am all ready for the implementation phase.  Two hours every other weekend is not as much time as I would like in my garden, but it's a heck of a lot better than nothing.

And Kathy has promised to help me plant Stewart.

the illusion of four weeks (with tips!)

A conversation I had with a first year associate at my new firm reminded me of one of my least favorite aspects of Biglaw.  At the conclusion of our conference call, a fourth year, the first year, and I started chatting about associate life.  The first year, who has been at the firm about three months, I think (read: longer than me) finally asked, a bit nervously, "Can I ask you guys something?"  I was excited.  An opportunity for mentoring!  I love mentoring!

"Of course!" we both answered enthusiastically.  The fourth year must love mentoring too.

"Well, my hours are kind of low.  But.... I don't know.  I wanted to take this vacation in July.  Do you think I'm allowed?"  Oh boy.  I bet she thought this was an easy question. 

Officially, associates at my firm are entitled to four weeks of vacation per year.  This is the case at most Biglaw firms -- it's totally market.  So it seems like the answer to this poor first year's question would be a "Yes" as long as she hasn't somehow managed to already take one month off when she's only been here for three. 

(via)

seriously, I could quit at any time

I recently got a new iPhone from work.  It's a 4S, which means it has a robot voice who answers me when I ask it questions (or when A asks it questions, although it has no opinion of what she should be when she grows up and it is not in love with her).  Surprisingly, my biggest concern when I got my new phone was not robots becoming animate and taking over the world, although I heard on the radio earlier this week that scientists suggest that is actually one of the more likely world-ending scenarios, if we are to believe the Mayans and such a thing is imminent. 

No, instead, I was slapped with a feeling of guilt when I opened the new iPhone box in my office last week.  "They probably wouldn't have given me this if they knew I could quit at any second," I shocked myself by thinking.

Now, first.  Yes, actually, they would give me the phone if they knew I could quit at any second.  That's why if I quit in less than six months, I have to pay for the stupid phone myself.  They would not have policies in place for this kind of thing if they didn't anticipate it happening, at least some of the time.  Anyone, with any job, could technically quit at any second (so long as you are an at-will employee, I suppose).

Second, why was I thinking I would quit at any second?  Didn't I just start this job?  I realized I felt a little tug of guilt with each benefit or perk I enrolled in at my new firm.  Not as though I didn't deserve them for working there, but instead because I didn't feel loyal enough to deserve them.  The funny thing is, it's not like I wanted to quit.  I didn't -- I don't.  It was as if I was afraid I would accidentally quit.  I felt like something would happen that was too similar to the old place, I would have some kind of post-traumatic stress type reaction, and before I knew it I would be handing over my badge, grabbing my potted plant, and heading for the door.

finding our feet - part I

Kathy and I went to Oregon early in this month to celebrate the domestic partnership of two dear friends.  It was a long weekend full of wine drinking, celebrating, and lying around drinking coffee re-hashing the events of the night before.  Basically, it was like college, only in college it was Jack Daniels Downhome Punch or Old Milwaukee instead of wine.  The weekend was fabulous.

What was slightly less fabulous was diving into the workweek on Tuesday with two suitcases full of dirty clothes, a dirty house, and no groceries.  How could I have forgotten this horrible fact of being a dual-income family?  Without your weekend, no chores get done!  You start the workweek about 10 hours behind, and then frantically paddle, trying to not only keep your head above water, but actually make forward progress so you can get back on track. 

Each morning was a mad rush, packed with convincing the kids that three-week old bread with American cheese on it was a delicious and nutritious lunch and that those jeans aren't that dirty; in fact, jeans are designed to be worn more than once without washing!  Each evening was a load of laundry, a cobbled-together dinner made of things purchased at Sam's Club and stuck in the freezer when I wasn't working, and sorting through stacks of mail and other papers, trying to make sure no utilities were shut off in the meantime.  And then I had a business day-trip on Friday, so I had to leave the house at 6 am.

the return of insomnia

It's 5:42 am.  I've been up since 3:08.  For the first hour and two minutes, I tossed and turned.  Finally, I got up and started cleaning, because I didn't know what else to do with myself and the house was a wreck.  From 4:10 until 5:20, I unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded it and did all the dishes by hand that needed to be done, straightened up the living room, put some tools away in the basement, tidied up the office, threw away massive piles of accumulated mail, and cleaned the bathroom.  Then I sat down to pay bills, which I've been doing since 5:20.  Sometime around 5:15, A came down and went to the bathroom.

"What's going on?" she asked, bewildered, as she looked around the house, lights blazing in the middle of the night.

"I'm cleaning. There was no other time to do it."

This is true, and not true.  There was no other time to do it, but that's not why I was doing it.  I was doing it because I could not sleep, and the state of our house was driving me crazy, so there seemed an obvious solution.

(photo via here)

first days

Last Thursday, I started at my new law firm.  The first day, as can be expected, consisted mostly of training and orientation activities.  Afterward, there was a cocktail party -- which apparently happens relatively regularly.  By the end of a four our technology training, I was dying to go home, but I felt like I should go to the cocktail party -- especially since it was my first day. 

privacy

Frequent readers of this blog may have noticed that it was private for a few days.  Here's why.  It turns out that someone at my old firm circulated a link to this blog to a bunch of partners.  Which meant that they were reading it.  I always knew, when I decided to start a blog, that it was public.  I knew I had to be prepared for my worst enemy to read it.   But I kind of always figured that no one would be cruel enough to pass the blog along to the partnership at the old firm, and that even if they did, the partners would seriously have better things to do than read about my search for life-satisfaction and gardening success (or lack thereof).  It turned out I was wrong, in both respects. 

So when I found out that had happened, I had two thoughts:  (1) Was there anything on here that made me look bad, professionally?  and (2) How creepy, that there are people out there that I would never even tell what I did on the weekends, and now they know that Kathy and I got in an argument over what towels to use and my identity as a  non-lawyer.

accepted

I received an offer from the firm I interviewed at last week.  The partner from my old firm, who moved to the new place, called and left me a voicemail with the details.  When I listened to the voicemail, I felt like I was only catching the drift, not hearing the individual words.  As the words washed over me -- "Making you an offer... Would love to have you on board... Conflicts paperwork... " -- it hit me.  I was going back to work. 

Remember those days I never got dressed?  The week I finally put "take a shower" on my to-do list to make sure it happened?  Remember the long mornings weeding my garden, filled with gratitude for all I had?  The DIY projects I took on, some more successful than others?  The books I read, the naps I took, the old hobbies revived?  All of that was ending.

When my phone rang, I was doing yoga for the first time in months (years?), trying to alleviate the back pain that had been plaguing me for the last month or so.  I heard the phone ring, but could not find it to answer in time, so I paused my video, waited for the voicemail to show up, listened to it, texted Kathy with the news, then got back to the yoga.  As I stretched my sore muscles, I let my mind wander and let the news really sink in.  I had decided to go back to work, and had decided, for a number of reasons, to go back to BigLaw.  I knew, in my head, that this was the right decision.  But I was also so afraid, and was trying hard not to allow the fear to take root and grow. 

(financial) freedom ain't free

I'm still looking for a job.  While I have a promising lead or two, I haven't done any actual interviewing yet.  This has resulted in several sleepless nights, where I have nightmares that we are going to be evicted from our house because we can't pay for it, and that it will be all my fault.  Also, in the dreams, I default on my student loans. 

No one thinks that law school is cheap.  That is because it is decidedly not.  According to some articles, attending a top 10 law school (like Berkeley, where I went -- although it's a public school, it's still pricey) costs about $43,000 a year, just in tuition.  Plus your undergraduate education.  Plus the expenses of actually living for the three years you are in school.  This is usually financed by taking out massive student loans, with the expectation that you will either make big bucks to pay them off, or at least qualify for LRAP. 

So, since this is not a dinner party with in-laws, I will tell you my numbers, so you non-lawyer types can get a sense of what this means in real terms.  I graduated from undergrad with no debt.  I graduated from law school with about $150,000 in student loan debt.  That is the size of a decent-sized mortgage.  Fortunately, like a mortgage, they give me 30 years to pay it off.  Unfortunately, and unlike a mortgage, my interest rate is locked in to pre-crash highs, and I can't refinance it to bring the rate down.  So the interest rate on my educational debt is higher than that of our mortgage, our car loan, and one of my credit cards. 

 

 (an example of a house I could buy with the same amount of money I paid to go to law school.)

job searching

Recently, I've started the job-search process in earnest.  By recently, I suppose I mean this morning, although I have been half-heartedly searching for about the last month. 

Finding a job is possibly one of the most horrible experiences to which we subject ourselves.  You send your resume out in to the void, and wait endlessly for some kind of response.  Most online postings have some sort of disclaimer to the effect that, due to volume of responses, they only actually answer people that they intend to interview.  So you have no idea whether you are still in the running but they haven't called yet, whether they found someone else, or whether they were even considering you in the first place.  Or really, whether they even read your resume.  So, worse than rejection, you hear nothing, nothing, nothing.  Then, if you're lucky, rejection.

nerd

A few weeks ago, I realized that if I wanted to continue to be a lawyer, I had to actually comply with my state's continuing education requirements and keep my law license.  The compliance deadline is October 22, two years after I was first admitted to practice law.  Which gave me about a month to get 13 hours worth of continuing legal education credits.  Preferably, for free.

In New York, if you're "newly admitted" -- meaning within your first 2 years -- you can't click through the online seminars, or listen in over the phone.  You have to be a body in a chair in front of a live presenter.  I discovered I could take the classes offered by the Practicing Law Institute for free (to me) through my affiliation with my old firm. That's how I found myself at "Bridging the Gap" all day on Tuesday -- a nine hour continuing education seminar full of other newly-admitted attorneys like myself. 

(Look at the size of the book.  They are not messing around.)

anchors aweigh

Six months into joblessness, one thing I'm struck by is how thoroughly our identities are wrapped up in what we do for work.  It's like our careers (whether it be homemaker, freelancer, corporate lawyer, or otherwise) are, at our core, who we are.  Being a (practicing) lawyer gave me confidence in other areas of my life in ways I didn't recognize.  It gave me something to complain talk about at parties.  It gave me something to do during the day, so that I didn't have to structure my days, weeks, and months for myself.  Being a lawyer, and a pretty successful one, for someone three years out of law school, gave me a core feeling of competence as I moved through the world.  It also gave me a sense of pride, to be able to say that I was a lawyer -- I had obviously worked hard through law school and bar studying, and had passed the exam.  It gave me a sense that I had made it.  All of this anchored me in the world in a way I didn't recognize. 

i finally want a job

Okay.  It's finally happened.  Nearly six months, to the day, from the time I quit my Biglaw job, I WANT A JOB.  I love what I do at home.  I love my garden, and keeping the house ticking, etc, etc.  But it's time to go back to work again.  This weekend I actually spent a period of time playing something on coolmath-games.com, which I'm pretty sure is directed at children.

(specifically, this castle defense game)

I was bored, for the first time in ages.  My mind was bored.  So, I think, it's time to get me a job.

things i actually miss about biglaw

I've been in a list-making mood lately.  I think they might be the best blog-posts for avoiding GRE studying.  Since it's been about three months, give or take, since I quit my job, I took the opportunity to look back and reflect on some things I actually miss about working in Biglaw, in no particular order.

1.  Getting dressed in nice clothes each day.  This one's surprising to me, since I've always been a jeans-and-Tshirt kinda girl.  But it turns out I actually liked putting on nice clothes every day.  I also noticed that, for some reason, I have more confidence in business clothes than in casual clothes.  Hm.

2.  Seeing my co-workers.  Despite the best of intentions, I am extraordinarily lousy at keeping in touch with people, and they are no exception.  The other associates in my (old) department at the firm do get together from time to time, but usually on Saturday nights, which are tough for me with the Fire Island weekend thing going on.  And also the suburban kid thing.  Saturday night = babysitter, which is much more difficult than just asking the usual nanny to stay an extra hour or two to get happy hour with someone.

3.  Writing memos.  WHAT?  Yes, the actual work.  Not so much legal research, which I find kind of boring, but I really liked writing hard, confusing memos. 

4.  Being horribly abused by my superiors and never knowing when I would be able to go home.  HA, oh wait, that's something I DON'T miss.

On balance, I'm really happy with my decision to leave my firm.  But the things I miss have made me consider whether, possibly maybe somehow, another type of legal job might be an okay fit for me.  Ya know, if the whole grad school thing doesn't work out.

the unintended side effects of quitting your job

Kathy:  Did you know the government is going to be shut down?

Me:  Whose government?

Kathy:  Ours, I guess.

Me:  Really?  Why?

Kathy: I have no idea.  I just saw it on CNN.com when I booted my computer.  I guess I should read it.

This is what happens when I no longer have an extraordinarily long elevator ride, during which I can read the headlines each day.

last day

Yesterday was my last day as a Biglaw associate.  My going away party started at 6.  At 6:15, I looked at the items remaining on my desk.  I stuck the bottle of Frank's Red Hot and my pedicure flip-flops in my purse, and basically swept the remaining items into the garbage.  I turned off my computer, and walked out.  Because my party started at 6, I was the only one leaving at 6:20 -- people were either already there or not ready to leave yet.  As I rode down in the elevator, I thought maybe it was fitting that I leave alone, as I walked in alone on my first day of work.  I was lost in thought, pondering the symmetry and poetry of walking out the front doors and looking back at the building.

I was so lost in thought that I accidentally walked through the security gate of the side door.  I paused.  I had already turned in my badge and couldn't go back.  So I had no choice but to walk out the side door, where the smokers congregate under the overhang.  I walked out through a cloud of smoke, next to a dumpster.  The air was heavy and grey, and a light rain was falling, but I didn't have an umbrella and the smoke and dumpster smell was so unpleasant that I didn't pause.  I didn't look back.  I just walked the three blocks to the bar with my hands in my coat pockets, hurrying so my hair wasn't soaked by the time I got to the party. 

four days

I have four more days of work.  In four days, I will no longer be employed by my law firm, and my pay stubs will say "severance."  I have spent the last two days wrapping up matters that I have been working on, sending documents to records, and liberating myself via this guy:

Lawyers use a lot of paper.  A lot.  That guy is half full already.  In case you were wondering, that is not just a trash can.  That is a shredding can, for all my sensitive and confidential work papers.  And because we're lawyers, after all, the shredding can comes with this:

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, my friends.  NO EXCUSE.

It's all so ridiculous.  I swear I have not stopped rolling my eyes over the confidentiality procedures since I started receiving all the 900 memos the Monday after I gave notice.  Of course, I am following them.  I have to follow them.  I just follow them and roll my eyes.  I actually have to have my personal effects inspected and signed-off by a partner before I leave the office, lest I sneak a document that is firm work-product into my potted plant.

estoppel

When I was a 1L (first year law student), I had to write a memo for my LRW (legal research and writing) class about promissory estoppel.  By the end of it, I felt like I could have told you the elements of promissory estoppel in my freaking sleep.  That's what happens when you spend an entire semester researching and writing one memo -- something that in actual practice you sometimes have to do in one day.  My then-girlfriend (a non-law student) used to recite the five elements of promissory estoppel as a party trick because she had heard so much about the stupid promissory estoppel memo.  Only the other law students ever laughed.  Their significant others looked kind of sick, because I bet they could have recited all five elements as well.

Estoppel is the legal doctrine that basically provides that if you purposely mislead someone, and they rely on your misleading statements, you can't then turn around and use their actions against them.  I guess there are a bunch of different kinds of estoppel, but the main two kinds I have dealt with are promissory estoppel and equitable estoppel.  Promissory estoppel applies when you promise someone something that they then rely on to their detriment.  Equitable estoppel arises when you purposely lie to someone and they rely on it to their detriment.  There are also procedural kinds of estoppel, like collateral estoppel.  Anyway, boring.

The point I am gradually getting around to here is that I am currently, during my last two weeks at the firm, researching estoppel.  For real.  As in, find a case that lists the five elements, apply to our facts, predict whether the client will be estopped.  I have come full circle in a way that really sort of frightens me. 

Also, I think that the partner who stopped by to "have a little chat before I left" should have been estopped from assigning me this project during that conversation.  I never would have let him into my office if I had known that he was going to give me new work at the end of our "chat."

* Ridiculous estop sign picture via here.