cried at my desk for first time Forum

[Anonymous User]

If you're male and you cry because some old geezer yells at or nitpicks at you, you have some serious issues.

Mod edit: user has been warned for sexist douchebaggery.

LMAO

[Anonymous User]

Necro OP: Hang in there. That shitty midlevel or senior who is riding you is almost always some combination of (1) a crappy manager trying to cover up their crappy management by putting their stress on you, (2) made the same mistakes you did and now has convenient amnesia, (3) came up under a shitty partner and only knows how to get juniors to work for them by being shitty.

The first senior I worked for was the same person that you describe. Nobody told me they were an outlier until more than a year and a half into my biglaw career and I had worked for more sane people. You can only let this person drive you out if you want them to - but it's not like you wouldn't be the first. Eventually, this matter will end, you'll get to work with someone better, and they will be someone else's problem. In the meantime, keep learning, just try your best to do what they say and take those lessons on to the next assignment.

[Anonymous User]

If you're male and you cry because some old geezer yells at or nitpicks at you, you have some serious issues.

Mod edit: user has been warned for sexist douchebaggery.

im a male that had not cried in my adult life except once when i started biglaw. i probably cry about 5-7 times a year now because of the stress that the environment puts on you. usually its unrelated directly to the job, but human bodies have natural biological mechanisms they resort to when you work in a stressful environment and subject yourself to minimal sleep.

its fine. its natural. and its symbolically why the job is highly compensated - because its an undesirable outcome to spend a long term portion of your life doing that has negative consequences on every other part of your life from your mental and physical health to your kids to your spouse.

+1 for a former male mid-law lit. associate here. You all have much stronger constitutions than I do with this workplace horsecr@p. I got through about 6 weeks before I shut my office door and sat on the floor of my office and broke down. My firm was low-paying and top-heavy with partners and few associates and hadn't hired a brand new one for maybe 5-6 years. No training. No research memos. It was a complete baptism by fire with a female partner having me write a motion for summary judgment within a month of starting that needed ultimately needed some moderate redrafting after she kept moving the goal posts on dates for drafts. When she snapped at me repeatedly, I told her I didn't like the way she was treating me professionally and she responded that she would never endorse my work positively either to herself or other partners. She then embarked on a smear campaign against me for the next eight months -refused to give me work, made no eye contact, turned her back to me and slowly killed my hours because I couldn't compensate from other partners after being walled off and wasn't indispensable. I had worked for several years in a competitive workplace with all flavors of psycho and passive aggressive personalities but never met a person until who a made it a point to destroy someone else's career.
Eventually, the firm cut me loose. I drove to work every day those eight months with a knot in my stomach, couldn't sleep, was depressed, etc. I had clerked on the SSC and, although my T2 grades weren't terrific, I hadn't failed at anything before in my life.

I took three years off doing legal research (think Congressional Research Service etc.) and am contemplating whether to take a D.Ct. offer and give this another go followed by government work or just a career clerkship but I still have flashbacks to the times I cried and how stupid and worthless I was made to feel and began to believe about myself.

[Anonymous User]

Necro-OP here: thanks everyone. It's just nice to know my feelings aren't unusual and to hear some encouragement--albeit somewhat tempered, ha.

[Anonymous User]

I looked at this thread when it was first posted and thought, nah, never could happen to me. Well, the past four months have brought me to the point of questioning my existence, and that sentiment has changed. I am hoping a vacation in April/May will improve the current situation. Good luck OP and all others! You ain't alone.

[Tiago Splitter]

it gets better in that you will have less debt or no debt at all, so you can up and quit one day if you really wanted to.

It also helps to develop some credibility and with it a tiny bit of independence.

OP the main thing is to try to work for other people. You'll probably find that you drew the short straw with this first mid-level but they aren't always that bad.

[Anonymous User]

it gets better in that you will have less debt or no debt at all, so you can up and quit one day if you really wanted to.

It also helps to develop some credibility and with it a tiny bit of independence.

OP the main thing is to try to work for other people. You'll probably find that you drew the short straw with this first mid-level but they aren't always that bad.

Ehh, it helps maybe a little bit. I'm a mid-level that gets nothing but good reviews and I like the people I work with, but honestly its just a shitty job.

[Anonymous User]

I feel like ill never learn how to navigate the idiosyncratic nature of assignments and seniors

[pml87]

If you're male and you cry because some old geezer yells at or nitpicks at you, you have some serious issues.

Mod edit: user has been warned for sexist douchebaggery.

im a male that had not cried in my adult life except once when i started biglaw. i probably cry about 5-7 times a year now because of the stress that the environment puts on you. usually its unrelated directly to the job, but human bodies have natural biological mechanisms they resort to when you work in a stressful environment and subject yourself to minimal sleep.

its fine. its natural. and its symbolically why the job is highly compensated - because its an undesirable outcome to spend a long term portion of your life doing that has negative consequences on every other part of your life from your mental and physical health to your kids to your spouse.

+1 for a former male mid-law lit. associate here. You all have much stronger constitutions than I do with this workplace horsecr@p. I got through about 6 weeks before I shut my office door and sat on the floor of my office and broke down. My firm was low-paying and top-heavy with partners and few associates and hadn't hired a brand new one for maybe 5-6 years. No training. No research memos. It was a complete baptism by fire with a female partner having me write a motion for summary judgment within a month of starting that needed ultimately needed some moderate redrafting after she kept moving the goal posts on dates for drafts. When she snapped at me repeatedly, I told her I didn't like the way she was treating me professionally and she responded that she would never endorse my work positively either to herself or other partners. She then embarked on a smear campaign against me for the next eight months -refused to give me work, made no eye contact, turned her back to me and slowly killed my hours because I couldn't compensate from other partners after being walled off and wasn't indispensable. I had worked for several years in a competitive workplace with all flavors of psycho and passive aggressive personalities but never met a person until who a made it a point to destroy someone else's career.
Eventually, the firm cut me loose. I drove to work every day those eight months with a knot in my stomach, couldn't sleep, was depressed, etc. I had clerked on the SSC and, although my T2 grades weren't terrific, I hadn't failed at anything before in my life.

I took three years off doing legal research (think Congressional Research Service etc.) and am contemplating whether to take a D.Ct. offer and give this another go followed by government work or just a career clerkship but I still have flashbacks to the times I cried and how stupid and worthless I was made to feel and began to believe about myself.

Motion for summary judgment within 1 month. . That is almost unheard of. Where is the firm located, if you don't mind my asking?

[Anonymous User]

If you're male and you cry because some old geezer yells at or nitpicks at you, you have some serious issues.

Mod edit: user has been warned for sexist douchebaggery.

im a male that had not cried in my adult life except once when i started biglaw. i probably cry about 5-7 times a year now because of the stress that the environment puts on you. usually its unrelated directly to the job, but human bodies have natural biological mechanisms they resort to when you work in a stressful environment and subject yourself to minimal sleep.

its fine. its natural. and its symbolically why the job is highly compensated - because its an undesirable outcome to spend a long term portion of your life doing that has negative consequences on every other part of your life from your mental and physical health to your kids to your spouse.

+1 for a former male mid-law lit. associate here. You all have much stronger constitutions than I do with this workplace horsecr@p. I got through about 6 weeks before I shut my office door and sat on the floor of my office and broke down. My firm was low-paying and top-heavy with partners and few associates and hadn't hired a brand new one for maybe 5-6 years. No training. No research memos. It was a complete baptism by fire with a female partner having me write a motion for summary judgment within a month of starting that needed ultimately needed some moderate redrafting after she kept moving the goal posts on dates for drafts. When she snapped at me repeatedly, I told her I didn't like the way she was treating me professionally and she responded that she would never endorse my work positively either to herself or other partners. She then embarked on a smear campaign against me for the next eight months -refused to give me work, made no eye contact, turned her back to me and slowly killed my hours because I couldn't compensate from other partners after being walled off and wasn't indispensable. I had worked for several years in a competitive workplace with all flavors of psycho and passive aggressive personalities but never met a person until who a made it a point to destroy someone else's career.
Eventually, the firm cut me loose. I drove to work every day those eight months with a knot in my stomach, couldn't sleep, was depressed, etc. I had clerked on the SSC and, although my T2 grades weren't terrific, I hadn't failed at anything before in my life.

I took three years off doing legal research (think Congressional Research Service etc.) and am contemplating whether to take a D.Ct. offer and give this another go followed by government work or just a career clerkship but I still have flashbacks to the times I cried and how stupid and worthless I was made to feel and began to believe about myself.

Motion for summary judgment within 1 month. . That is almost unheard of. Where is the firm located, if you don't mind my asking?

Think PA/NJ/NY. Partner did a 2-4 year associate stint in NY Biglaw (think: SullCrom/DPW/Weil) many many many moons ago for what it's worth.

[Anonymous User]

As someone who has been out for almost 2 years, I can tell you that the allure of BIGLAW, SA, and 3L year knowing you have the 'golden ticket" is was always the peak of my "law career" experience. Once you actually show up on Day 1 you realize that you are 1. fucked 2. going to end up a tired, fat, and emotionally drained and 3. are not valued by the firm, at all.

Law, to me, is truly a poor choice for around 80% of the people who ultimately end up practicing.

This is too real. I am a 3L right now and the gravity of the situation is starting to dawn on me. Stories are also starting to leak out from people I personally knew who were in the years above me.

What has been most telling is how my firm's tone has changed. This isn't actually a conscious decision on anyone's part, its just that I am now dealing with the organization in a different capacity. The mirage created by the recruiting function is finished and now I am dealing with the onboarding people and they clearly do not give a fuck. It's like now that I am no longer a summer I am seeing the true face of the organization for the first time and its kinda scary.

As a result I've bee going back through this forum and re-reading negative accounts that I had previously dismissed.

[elendinel]

CLS hopeful will inevitably be sitting in his own office a few years from now at 1am trying to figure out how he can possible write an entire motion to dismiss by morning while his/her SO sends him text messages wondering when he/she is going to see CLShopeful again and CLShopeful will be thinking back to this post and going, "yeah, I was a douche."

Why the fuck am I considering doing biglaw?

[Tiago Splitter]

As someone who has been out for almost 2 years, I can tell you that the allure of BIGLAW, SA, and 3L year knowing you have the 'golden ticket" is was always the peak of my "law career" experience. Once you actually show up on Day 1 you realize that you are 1. fucked 2. going to end up a tired, fat, and emotionally drained and 3. are not valued by the firm, at all.

Law, to me, is truly a poor choice for around 80% of the people who ultimately end up practicing.

This is too real. I am a 3L right now and the gravity of the situation is starting to dawn on me. Stories are also starting to leak out from people I personally knew who were in the years above me.

What has been most telling is how my firm's tone has changed. This isn't actually a conscious decision on anyone's part, its just that I am now dealing with the organization in a different capacity. The mirage created by the recruiting function is finished and now I am dealing with the onboarding people and they clearly do not give a fuck. It's like now that I am no longer a summer I am seeing the true face of the organization for the first time and its kinda scary.

As a result I've bee going back through this forum and re-reading negative accounts that I had previously dismissed.

Relax. What's done is done. In the meantime, you have six months to party with zero responsibility. Don't fuck it up, and don't waste time worrying.