So Unfathomably Lame

I made it to day 4 of the promised 12. I think this says more about why I can't lose weight than any explanation about my work load and parenting responsibilities ever can.

My excuse for yesterday -- I was in the office until about 10 p.m. and then came home, chased the girls to bed, and drank a cosmo or 2 before going to bed myself. I did not give April 2009 a second thought until this morning.

I don't want to blog in the office, even during the ridiculously late hours when I should be home, since I learned that each day the General Counsel gets a print out of everyone who spends more than 3 minutes at a "bad" website, as well as the website. And in my paranoia, I'm convinced he will hunt down my anonymish* blog and lay me under the knife rather than focus on the guys scamming "massage therapists" on craigslist.

April 2009

Anyway, April 2009 was strange. I got business cards and a new blackberry. The Dungeon Master/Grumpy Partner Firm did not have business cards, so I felt like The Jerk when I got a spanking new box of affirmation of my existence. The New Business Cards are Here! The New Business Cards are Here! I AM Somebody! I can't tell you how humbling it was to show up for a trial, hard-assed litigator that I am, and have to fill out the pro se form for the Clerk. It was like sitting at the kiddy table.

For some reason my Dreier crackberry worked through the end of February, when everyone else's stopped working in December. I spent March without my electronic umbilical cord. It was kinda nice. I still have the old blackberry and I'm trying to figure out what I can hack it into. Something clever, yet appropriately ironic given its genesis. If anyone has any suggestions, please share.

The biggest change in April was the prevalence of forms. The Firm is the bureaucrat's dream. Don't have any pens? Write out a form and The Mother Ship will send new ones. Computer does not work? Fill out the on-line form and The Mother Ship will send help. Need an expense reimbursed? Of course there's a form for that. But not that form, the other one. No. No. Yes, that one.

My mantra those first few weeks was, "Paper trails mean accountability. People with nothing to hide embrace paper trails."

Within a week or 2, Baby Huey joined the staff as a junior litigation associate. He had been a contract attorney before then and I was not overwhelmed. Hell, I wasn't even whelmed. But the Dungeon Master, he do like his vanity hires. This one had an ongoing consultancy with a huge company that could, conceivably become a major client for the firm, so we all have to tolerate Baby Huey and his wacky hi-jinks. (Look at that silly Baby Huey! He thinks you can prepare an application for an injunction and supporting documents without reading the Federal Rules or researching any case law! What a refreshing perspective. I now understand that us uptight litigators should just stop and smell the roses!!)

So that was April.

May 2009

May was tough. I billed about 230 hours and cannot remember much about it. I think there was another oh-by-the-way trial, that ended up not being a trial until July. If you're wondering, 230 hours annualizes to over 2700 hours. And that's only billed time. Time sent staring at computer screen when you've averaged 5 hours of sleep for 3 weeks, wondering what day it is and what do all those squiggly arcs and lines on the screen mean...that's not billable. For perspective: normal full-time humans, who work 35 hours per week, work 1800 or so hours per year.

June was worse, but since then I've loafed my way down to the highly respectable 2200-2300 range, which is still higher than 90% of The Firm.

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*I could try a little harder if I really cared not to be found.