Feast and Famine

Having been at my job for almost two years now, I've made it past a few of the professional growing pains. One aspect of becoming acclimated to the work is getting use to - or at least, learning to expect - the feast and famine nature of work as a litigator. The work schedule is driven by the discovery, pretrial, and trial schedules. When it rains, it pours. Nearly any litigator will tell you that the intensity of work has its ups and downs. Harder to convey, however, is just how violent those ups and downs are, and no words quite do it justice. Still, there are some things to be thankful for.

Any year in which the billables stack high during the first half of the year is good. It's better to hit your minimum billables early enough in the year so that Thanksgiving and the winter holidays aren't sullied with the background worry about having enough work. It's the winter season that's more fun - skiing and snowboarding, baked foods, warm tea, family get-togethers - all these are more pleasant without the nagging undercurrent of work stress picking at the seams of a quilt of cozy feelings.

A number of discussions with other associates outside my firm have also confirmed one of Townsend's points of pride - a good, emotionally healthy workplace. Most of my stress comes from the volume of work. Still, I'd have to admit that generally speaking, the heavy hours come with the territory. What I haven't had to suffer through is any real quantity of office drama or politics. Sure, it's there - but on the whole it's not too bad. It's certainly nothing that would drive me to leave the office to seek work at another firm.

I also have this weekend off. No work - I'd forgotten how nice it feels to do absolutely zero hours of work in a 48-hour period. I've caught up on some sleep and had a good day at wushu. I haven't had a weekend like this since the year started, and this has been really nice. I haven't felt human in a while, and it's a relief.