Friday, March 18, 2005
Anonymous Wife has finally given me permission to write this again. We had a deal. As long as she didn't drink, I wouldn't post to the weblog. She thought the weblog was stealing my attention away from her. I thought her drinking was getting a little excessive. I came home last night at about midnight and found her grinding chocolate truffles into the kitchen floor with her Manolo Blahnik shoes. There are enough functioning alcoholics at work; I don't need one at home too. So I'm back to regular posting. It's the only way I can vent some of my frustrations anyway.
A prospective summer associate called today to renege on his acceptance. He claimed he'd decided the law firm life wasn't for him. This happens every couple of years. Someone reneges at the last minute. More often than not, it's because they accepted more than one offer and thought we wouldn't find out. Lucky for us, there's some collusion in the market, and we were able in fairly short order to figure out where else he'd accepted an offer, and where he was rejecting us for. Lucky for him, that firm liked him enough that they're going to pretend they don't know he took our offer too. Occasionally we're able to screw someone this way; more often, like most minor ethical transgressions, it gets swept under the rug.
I got an e-mail from the recruiting department asking for my input as far as sending out gifts to the summer associates wishing them luck on their final exams. In the past, we've sent an assortment of gourmet brownies. The price of the package went up by 15% this year, so we're looking elsewhere. The associate on the recruiting committee who also got the e-mail wrote back suggesting a pair of handcuffs. The joke wasn't appreciated. There are times to kid around and there are times to be serious. Talking about what gift baskets to send to summer associates is a time to be serious.
We fired a paralegal today. She was playing solitaire on the computer every time I walked past. I was tired of it. They're all interchangeable anyway. The only good paralegals find themselves overextended and leave after two weeks anyway. There's no way for a good paralegal to survive here. We surround them like vultures and suck every ounce of productivity out of them; we demand they stay later and later; we get more and more demanding; until finally they give up. And we're left with Stumpy, the paralegal with the really short legs who doesn't understand that when we ask him to staple documents we don't mean on all four corners. It's impossible.
I'm leaving early to play golf with a client this afternoon. It's a nice day for it. Hopefully by the time I get home, Anonymous Wife will have sobered up.
A prospective summer associate called today to renege on his acceptance. He claimed he'd decided the law firm life wasn't for him. This happens every couple of years. Someone reneges at the last minute. More often than not, it's because they accepted more than one offer and thought we wouldn't find out. Lucky for us, there's some collusion in the market, and we were able in fairly short order to figure out where else he'd accepted an offer, and where he was rejecting us for. Lucky for him, that firm liked him enough that they're going to pretend they don't know he took our offer too. Occasionally we're able to screw someone this way; more often, like most minor ethical transgressions, it gets swept under the rug.
I got an e-mail from the recruiting department asking for my input as far as sending out gifts to the summer associates wishing them luck on their final exams. In the past, we've sent an assortment of gourmet brownies. The price of the package went up by 15% this year, so we're looking elsewhere. The associate on the recruiting committee who also got the e-mail wrote back suggesting a pair of handcuffs. The joke wasn't appreciated. There are times to kid around and there are times to be serious. Talking about what gift baskets to send to summer associates is a time to be serious.
We fired a paralegal today. She was playing solitaire on the computer every time I walked past. I was tired of it. They're all interchangeable anyway. The only good paralegals find themselves overextended and leave after two weeks anyway. There's no way for a good paralegal to survive here. We surround them like vultures and suck every ounce of productivity out of them; we demand they stay later and later; we get more and more demanding; until finally they give up. And we're left with Stumpy, the paralegal with the really short legs who doesn't understand that when we ask him to staple documents we don't mean on all four corners. It's impossible.
I'm leaving early to play golf with a client this afternoon. It's a nice day for it. Hopefully by the time I get home, Anonymous Wife will have sobered up.
# posted by Anonymous @ 1:50 PM 
