Going Out Even Further On A Limb...

Or Why My Current Place Of Employ Is A Five-Star Hotel, by Jen.

Reading back over my last blog post, it occurred to me I might want to explain why, if my Annoying Co-Worker is right about a lot of his complaints, I'm okay with working at The Firm. Because, honestly, it could sound like I'm just resigned. (He'd probably call me brainwashed.) And that's not it. I've been in this biz for a little over eleven years now. I've worked in firms and I've worked in firms. And here's a list of the stuff that's NOT going on at my firm, but has gone on at at least one of the other firms I've worked for, and maybe more than one.

(Let's face it, I gotta change some minor identifying details here. Yes, the First Amendment and all that, yes, blog boldly and blog often, etcetra, etcetra, but as I believe I may have mentioned, I like my job and I want to keep it, and I'm kinda adverse to getting sued, or worse, hunted down and shot, so just in case, I gotta do what I gotta do here, folks. And if you're an attorney, and you think this blog is about you, you're so vain.)

• None of the attorneys at my firm scream at people, call them stupid, make references to their sexual prowess or attractiveness or in general act like three-year-olds in nice suits.
• None of the attorneys at my firm indulge in weird forms of sexual harassment, for which they apparently feel they will not be busted, such as trying to discuss different forms of Japanese bondage pornography with their paralegals.
• Nobody at my firm is sleeping with anyone they shouldn't be sleeping with, making a Big Deal out of it, and using it to manipulate other persons into getting things that don't normally come with his or her position, like, I dunno, free parking.
• To the very best of my knowledge, and I have a lot of knowledge, nobody at my firm is doing anything illegal out of the back room.
• Everybody at my firm, from the senior partners to the newest young case managers, is expected to uphold certain ethical and professional standards. These ethical standards are even (gasp) written down in a book in case any questions come up later.
• Nobody at my firm carries a concealed weapon.
• Nobody at my firm has ever asked me to forge a signature on a document.
• Nobody at my firm has ever asked me to notarize a signature when I didn't see the person sign the document.
• Nobody at my firm has ever asked me to notarize a signature after he or she blatantly forged the signature of the person who was supposed to sign the document right in front of me. (Remember that thing about ethical standards?)
• If there's some kind of internal gossip loop in my office, my cube is in the corner it's the farthest from.
• Nobody at my firm has ever demanded that I draft and/or file a motion whose sole purpose is to harass the other party. (Yes, this did happen at one particular place I worked. A lot, if you'd like to know.)
• Nobody at my firm has ever asked me to come up with 160 billable hours in a month that only had 120 working hours, without working any overtime. (Two words. Im. Possible. Er, unless you heard that joke about the attorney who dies and goes to heaven? And he says to St. Peter, "There must be some mistake, I'm only 37 years old." And St. Peter says, "That's strange, according to your billable hours, you're 109."?)
• Nobody at my firm has ever sent me threatening emails from a bogus address and then laughed at me when I didn't get the "joke."

So does this mean everything's rosy? No, not exactly. Bad stuff happens. Senior Attorney and I had one disastrous mediation where everything that could have gone wrong did, about half of which was my fault, 40% of which was the fault of my predecessor and 10% was just the fickle finger of fate, as it were. I felt bad about that for days. We were also gearing up for a trial, putting in ridiculous amounts of time on it, and it all suddenly ground to a halt when the court postponed us one month on its own motion. The assistant manager doesn't seem to like me very much (I once asked the receptionist if it was because I was a woman, a lesbian or a Buddhist, and she told me it was because I was a carbon-based form of life). And yeah, there are definitely favorites among the field, and I'm not one of them. But, as I just said, since none of the above are going on, I'm fine with it. If that makes me a happy little worker bee, well, fine. But otherwise, just call me Been There, Done That in Dallas.