Face Time

I started working four days after the bar exam. Unheard of in the firm world, right? Most people go on one last, desperate Costa Rican adventure or European backpacking trip in a frantic effort to shed the haunting memories of the bar and to have one last hurrah before life starts to be measured in billable hours. I started working mere days after the exam at the new branch of a small law firm because they "needed" me to. And since I was grateful they gave me a job, I agreed to. This is not your typical law firm -- no billable hours! Yay! But of course, you have to put in face time. Don't you just hate it? No matter how much you work (and let's say you work really fast and efficiently), you're still not as good as the slow idiot you work with who gets in an hour earlier and leaves an hour later. Just because he sat at his computer slowly moving his mouse over the screen in an attempt to open Word for the 100th time and took his sweet time about it, he's the hard worker. Never mind that you produce 5 times the amount of work he does. FYI, I'm not saying that's me (neither the slow idiot or fast and efficient worker). I'm just trying to illustrate my point. However, my boss deigns to mention to me that I should think about my hours. Brings up small instances of me drinking a coffee in the morning and as a result, sending the impression that I start work an hour later. Things of that nature that imply that he freakishly observes me in stalker-like detail as I sit at my desk. (Inside, I'm screaming, "WTF?! I don't even take a full lunch! I don't even leave the office for lunch!") But on the outside, I nod politely and smile. I mean, REALLY? If you're going to notice little things like me eating crackers at my desk and think to yourself, "Hmm...she's not working" he should damn well notice that I skipped lunch. So that's face time. Following that conversation, I made sure to eat my crackers surreptiously under my desk and to have my computer open to a legal document every time he peeked around my desk to have a look. I left later, ate less lunch, and was generally hyper aware. Then, in a laughing tone, he calls out to me one evening from his office that I shouldn't be here if I don't have work to do just to put in face time. Boss, is it your intention to make me feel like an idiot? Yes, you have all the power, and yes, you're infintely wiser and more experienced than me. You win.

Face time.

Often practiced, seldomed addressed by title, yet he actually said those words. It's as if my mother in law criticized the dinner I cooked for her, so I went to cooking school and prepared a gourmet meal for her, and she eats it and says in her patronizing voice, "Oh, I certainly hope you didn't go to any trouble to cook this meal for lil' ol' me."

Face time.

Opinionista expressed it well when she wrote:

“Don’t be a dunce, of course face time is required here, as it is in every large law firm in this country. The partners look at you and see only walking dollar signs - since the skyrocket of associate salaries in the ’90s, they harbor nothing but resentment for the ridiculous amount in paychecks and bonuses they have to shovel in our direction, all in the name of staying competitive in the market. They want to see your ass cheeks rubber cemented to your desk chair, your eyes locked in a tractor beam to your computer screen, each and every time they happen to stroll past your office. And if your door is closed, they’ll automatically assume you’re napping, shopping online or looking at porn.”

What's up with the pretense? Don't pretend you don't like me sitting at my computer in the evenings even if I'm not working on anything related to law. It just makes you feel "better." And if you truly, out of the goodness of your heart, don't want me here when I'm done with my work, then don't make comments to me that disparage what I do.

In the beginning...

Not to be biblical or anything. I first started reading legal blogs in a desperate attempt to calm myself down as I studied for the bar exam. Often, I find myself huddled over the computer to check the blogs of some of my favorite legal bloggers in an attempt to commiserate or even to compare. You know, "How much has this person studied? He's only studied 3 essays today, so I'm on track." There's this innate mechanism left over from law school that forces you to compare yourself to others similarly situated, however much you despise doing so. During those bleak months, I would find myself poring over present and past blogs far more than is healthy. As the exam passed and the horror diminished, I did it less. But I would still check in from time to time. I found interesting blogs from the more famous bloggers such as Opinionista, Underneath the Robes, and Anonymous Lawyer, and found them entertaining. Then I read this article:

Each year thousands of otherwise perfectly normal college graduates with perfectly worthless degrees in the humanities venture into law school in the hope of landing a paying job that requires no science and little math. Many have been encouraged by college counselors who have told them that law school will “keep their options open” — code for delaying the inevitable for another three years — and it pays better than academia.
Law schools feed this myth because they need paying customers, even as the members of their own faculty are refugees from the very firms to which they are sending their students. Upon graduation, however, many students find that the entry-level jobs they get are little more than glorified secretarial positions. Sure, they pay well, but how many paper clips can you remove from a stack of documents before you start questioning your entire existence?

And since I began working in the real world, stuck in the kind of purgatory only Law Students Without Licenses would understand, I have been at a standstill. Unable to command any respect as an associate, but having the vague look of an attorney. All style, no substance. And thus it begins... 2 more weeks to go. Then miraculously, I will have substance. Or go for another attempt at it.