Firm Life. Still Doing It. Still Hating It.

So I quit that job with the long commute. Hooray!! I didn't fall asleep at the wheel or anything (thank goodness), but it got SO BAD once I went back after maternity leave. A new person was hired while I was out, and as a more experienced attorney, was given the task of "training" me. Like, from the ground up. As if I had never in my life had a job, let alone the fact that I had had THAT JOB for over a year and a half before she showed up.

Here's a tip: if you're going to tell me where to put a comma in an email, stop, then go fuck yourself. If you're going to require that I edit my work verbatim according to what you wish it said, and that includes using the word "expired" to describe someone who is dead, stop, then go fuck yourself.

If you're going to tell a woman that she doesn't deserve a (pro-rated!) bonus because "it was [her] choice to have a baby," stop, then go fuck yourself, and then go fuck yourself again. Check your watch, realize it is 20-fucking-18, then go fuck yourself again.

There were other times at that job, before maternity leave, when I really wished I could have left a note on my boss's desk and just never come back. But I had mouths to feed, so I had to deal until something better came along. I think I have some PTSD now.

Of course now that I have a new job I miss the old one. Just kidding. The new job is great! It's only 9 miles away (as opposed to 45)! It takes 25 minutes to get there (as opposed to 1:05+)! People treat me like an adult!

But it's hard, too. I am doing a lot of new things that I have never done before. I like this aspect, but it is challenging. I don't get out of the office much--that is the part I miss about the old job. At least the old job before maternity leave. We get to see each other's hours billed each month, and I kid you not, someone billed 232 hours in January. I thought I was right on target with 175. I was, technically, but I am competitive and that is just not good enough. There were only 19 billing days in February, but knock that down to 17 because I had the plague for 3 days (yep, worked for one of them), so now my goal is at least 200 for March to make up for the dismal 153 in February. Firm life. Still doing it. Still hating it. Just not as much. OK, the new job is good.

In other news...there is no other news. I work at a law firm and have three kids ages 5 and under. It's 9:30 on a Saturday night. I was supposed to be working for the past hour, but I started fucking around on the computer and blogging, etc., so now I will be working until 11pm. I promised myself I would take Sunday off. Does anything NEED to get done TODAY? No, of course not. But 200 hours.

I AM bitter. Not as bitter as I probably sound. I actually DO get out to do things like play pickleball (don't knock it until you've tried it!) on Sundays and go to bar trivia on Thursdays with Senior. But I would kill for a 9-5.

OK, I only have 4.5 hours on my timesheet for today. One point five more to go...

Back to the Grind II

Hiiii.

I asked for a few more days off. I also asked for a pro-rated bonus (denied, but got put back on payroll for a few more weeks while on leave). So I go back tomorrow. Gonna eeaaassse into it, since Tuesday is a holiday. I am OK with going back to work, actually. Just not OK with 2:10-2:30 hours of  driving and office politics. I just mentioned to Senior that my commute bothers me so much that I didn't even notice it was gone for almost 10 weeks. I also told him that if I ever fall asleep at the wheel I will quit that day.

I suppose there is nothing to report just yet. Stay with me, though. I'll be back soon.

Below the Law

Hiiii.

This is my first post in a year because I've been busy. Billing lots of hours, commuting and somehow managing to make another baby. Since I'm on maternity leave for 2 months, I can blog again! Whoever said maternity leave was not a vacation??

Ugh. Maternity leave. I will be going back after 9 weeks, though I am at the midpoint of that now and already thinking of asking for another week. It's unpaid anyway, and! I no longer have an office, so I'm thinking this shouldn't be a problem. (For work, that is; for me, well, can you pay your mortgage with a credit card?) Can you believe that our legal assistant said to me in an email: "I'm not sure if anyone told you, but I had to move all your stuff from your office for the new attorney, and you will have the conference room until we move into our new space." Ah, no, no one told me.

I left work on a Friday like everything was normal, started leaking fluid that day and was put on bed rest, so worked from home the following Monday and then had a baby on Tuesday. I didn't even have the opportunity to take any personal crap away first. I'm pretty sure my assistant could handle finding tampons in my drawer, but ovulation predictor strips? (Just kidding, I threw those away on a late night months ago.) As far as things I don't want others to see, I can only think of one piece of paper on which I wrote some notes for my annual review, but still. It feels compromising to have someone move all your things, completely without your knowledge.

Let's interrupt this bitch fest to show this:

My Eve! A girl--I'm thrilled!

Back to our regularly-scheduled programming:

I'm already pissed about work for numerous reasons, but mainly because the benefits are below market and are frankly appalling for someone who has a job like mine. None of the details are really worth blogging about, but then add the conference-room-as-office thing on top of it all. Suffice it to say that I am not feeling hopeful about the transition back to work. I don't think I will be ready to return to commuting and billing a lot of hours and not sleeping through the night and where the hell will I pump, by the way? (Thank god, there's actually a law about that, that actually applies to my firm.)

Oh man, we wonder why women are underrepresented in management, as law firm partners, etc. Really? Because having kids while working sucks! I'm not even actually working right now and it sucks! OK, I am sad now and am going to watch paternity results on Maury Povich while eating M&Ms by the handful until Eve wakes up. When I sit with her I will be happy again--just look at that face! (see above)

Morning at My House

Hiii. (This is how I'm going to begin all blogs posts from now on.)

So, House of Cards, Season whatever is on now, Episode 8. We put it on last weekend and I fell asleep within the first four minutes. So I won't talk about that one, but I am dying to talk about the episode, not sure if it is 6 or 7, where the perfect political wife greets the husband in the bathroom with "good morning" and a screw at the "his" sink. Then we learn they have a 5 or 6-year-old son who interrupts them to ask for breakfast, and THEN we learn they also have a 2-year-old daughter. Are they for real??

House of Cards: Ruining marriages across America.

I mean, who does that? It must make some people think that "If I don't do that, I must have married the wrong person!" This, on the other hand, is what morning looks like at my house:

First of all, you will never catch Senior shaving. Second, our "master" bath is like a tiny closet that barely fits one person when you consider that a sink, toilet and shower are all stuffed in there. Third, Junior wakes up sometime between 6:30 and 7:30, sometimes 6:15. Unless of course I have set an alarm, "just in case" for 7:45, then he will sleep until my alarm wakes him up, whining because he would actually have kept sleeping. He pads into our room, demands that one of us unlock our phone, preferably my phone (the 6+). Senior and I both pretend to keep sleeping, one of us opens one eye, and hands him the phone. We tell him to turn the volume all the way down or go back to his room. He usually complies. All the commotion, however, typically wakes LJ. On a good day LJ babbles in his crib for a while. When he starts wailing, I elbow Senior in the ribs and tell him to go get him. Or I go get him and slap Senior on the ass and tell him it's time to wake up with the rest of his family. One of us wrestles LJ onto the changing table and pins him down with at least 20% of our body weight. He still escapes and stands up and we just take off his diaper and let him run around naked for a bit. On a good day, he doesn't water his books or squat behind the furniture and take a dump. (This is a joke. He hasn't done this for a long time. Like since before he was aware that he should hide behind furniture to do it.) He's actually pretty cute and likes to sit his bare ass in my lap and read books. Junior meanwhile watches the phone in a zombie-like state, now sitting on the glider in LJ's room. Also sort of cute. At this point I'm on track to get to work at like 10:00, so suddenly everything turns frantic and I command that the boys go downstairs so I can get ready. All flesh and crevices covered with half-presentable clothing? Check. Twenty seconds worth of make up applied? Check. Hair in ponytail? Check. More whining ensues from the kitchen as Junior asks for oatmeal with chocolate for breakfast (i.e. Nutella--this is a good trick actually, but I suppose I'm not winning any Jessica Seinfeld culinary mom of the year awards). I rush through the kitchen, pulling together something I can eat in the car, blow kisses all around, and I'm out.

And as you can see, our window for morning sex was bolted shut all the time. Ah well.

New Job, New Schmob

Hello! I haven't blogged here in a while because commuting 2+ hours every day TOTALLY SUCKS the life out of you. And my 3-year-old is going through a phase (heaven help us that it's only a phase) where he refuses to go to bed no matter what time it is or how tired he is. Seriously, he went to bed at 12:30 last Saturday. Tonight he actually went to bed at a reasonable time with reasonably little fuss, hence, blogging. I also got home after LJ went to bed so I didn't have him to worry about. I miss him!

I don't really feel like bitching about this job today, but suffice it to say that I could. Ugh. Law firms. Anyone thinking about going to law school and then working at a law firm after? Just say no. Don't ask questions. Just don't do it.

That telecommute day once a week? Every time I try to take it, there's some sort of (non) problem. I still do take it at times, but after getting reamed for suggesting that I take a certain day to telecommute, planned in advance so that I could go to an eye doctor appointment, I'm keeping my distance for a few weeks. Haha, as in NOT keeping my distance and driving 45 miles to work each way. My boss explained that I can try to plan things but if work comes up I will have to cancel those things. Which is exactly what I said in the email in which I said I would telecommute on eye doctor day, "unless, of course, something for work comes up." I literally said that. She further explained that in the event of an emergency, I could see a doctor, and that would be a sick day. Which is funny to me, because I did have an emergency, and I went to 3 doctor appointments, one which had to be rescheduled because of work (something that I had to do that was on the calendar for weeks but I was only asked two days prior), and 5 trips to the lab without ever telling anyone. Because if I dread ever telling my boss that I'm pregnant, then I sure as hell don't want to tell her that I had a miscarriage. So what did I do while literally having a miscarriage? I went to work.

Whoops, I bitched. Ah. That feels better. Why didn't I blog about this sooner? Alright...it's not too late for ONE episode of House of Cards with the hubs. TTFN. Next time, we're going to talk about Season 4 of House of Cards, so catch up! I'm on episode 8.

Parting Thoughts

Last Friday, a few days after it happened, I was thinking about 18th-century partner's question about whether my dad approved of my job change. I was walking back to the office about 4:00 after being off-site for an assignment and then taking lunch, ahem, I mean mountain biking. It was really warm out and I was wearing a short sleeve shirt and thin, but not shiny, thank god, bike shorts. Shorts. And my black ballet flats. All I wanted to do was slip undetected into the first floor bathroom with the locker room (my office is on the third floor), and change before anyone saw me. I was about to enter the building when who else but 18th century partner walked out. "Looking casual today," he said. Son of a bitch. "I was at a job site with [other partner]...Have a nice weekend, [18th-century partner]!" Silence.

My last day was uneventful. As was the entire last week, I guess. The other partner I work for sent me a nice, encouraging email. One of the associates I worked with on his work called me with some nice words as well. My "main" boss didn't really say much. I don't think he likes me, and I think I have been a thorn in his side for the past two years because there really wasn't a place for me in his group and I kept asking for more work/more money and he wasn't able to deliver it, but admitting that would make him look bad so he was stuck. And I was stuck but I got unstuck and I'm so happy I got out of there!!!!!! Still, he's a good sport and took me and a few other lawyers to lunch at a really good Syrian restaurant right across the street from the elementary school that my firm "adopted" for two years. It was delicious! One of the new associates has had lots of Middle Eastern food and helped me with the ordering (oh, by the way I'm half Syrian), and I loved showcasing the food of "my people" to the others. That took two hours. The rest of my time I spent cleaning out my office. I think I billed an hour and a half. I probably billed 15 hours for the week. I don't know why I had to be there but my boss wanted the customary two weeks. Which is funny because he is not replacing me (which is a good call, see above). I was happy to get paid to take long lunches mountain biking.

So, anyway, my last day was kind of like, "Peace out, fuckers!" But I pretended that it wasn't. 

Introducing Mrs. Smug

Not I. No, no, I have been humbled way too many times by an older toddler to be smug about my parenting choices and abilities.

I was admiring the adorable little blond boy at Cosi today while waiting for my lunch. We was probably almost two. He sat in his high chair at the table and just sat there. Looked around. There was no food in front of him. No toys. No screen. He sat there. Didn't scream or yell. Didn't squirm. His mother was also blonde with a perfect updo, a fine-featured, beautiful face and she too sat at the table with quite a bit of poise. Then I realized that I knew the other women at the table--my dad's cousin and her mother. I went over to say hello and was introduced to the beautiful, poised woman and her beautiful child. I commented on well he was doing. The cousin told her daughter-in-law (the beautiful, poised woman) that I had two sons and how old they are. I said they would never sit there like this. Beautiful, poised woman looked at me calmly, with a slightly confused expression and said, "they wouldn't?" and slightly nodded while slightly tilting her head. Cue the arrival of the food--thank god! perfect timing!--and I, gracefully, I might add, excused myself.

I wanted to scream at her: IT'S NOT YOUR PARENTING!!! IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S YOUR KID!!! JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU HAVE ANOTHER ONE!!!