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Anonymous User wrote: He gets all pissed off at me, slams his hand on his desk and tells me that things go in one ear and out the other for me.

Anonymous User wrote:Since is the season of giving, let's give those horrible bosses we all have a gift they won't forget. Share your horrible boss story now!

Just this morning, partner reprimands me for leaving yesterday at 5:15 (i.e. the time I've left nearly every day for the last 4-5 months and for most of my career). I tell him that I didn't have any work to do all day, asked for work and no one had any. (This is also why I always leave at this time- there's no fucking work.) He gets all pissed off at me, slams his hand on his desk and tells me that things go in one ear and out the other for me. Meanwhile, there's no Merry Christmas from the firm, certainly no bonus, and the office administrator had all "employees" (so associates and staff) buy the partners gifts. Sign me up to get the hell out of here!

Anonymous User wrote:I had confused the names on a document I wrote at 2 in the morning on a Friday night, which resulted in a bad typo. I'm not making excuses but I had been working 15 hour+ days for 2 weeks straight which was mostly spent doing work that I realized from looking at the shared drive had never been opened. Between the hours, feeling I was waiting for Godot and being subjected to the tempers of one overzealous associate, I was starting to burn out.

Anyway, I get a call when I'm trying to find my way home. I had got the flu a few days earlier, but had no time to see a doctor and was so overtired I forgot what block I lived on so was basically circling around Manhattan walking like Frankenstein because of the approach-avoidance conflict on whether to just sleep on a park bench for a few hours.

So yeah, the phone rings and the associate asked how I could be so negligent to make the typo. I had also made a bunch of similar errors that same week all on work completed after 10 PM. Even though I printed and proofread, I had never worked so hard so consistently before that I would miss typos until about a week into the madness when I had trouble reading or coming up with words in conversation (if any conversation went deeper than "how are you?" I'd be at a loss).

Anywho, I apologize about the typo and explain I'm really exhausted. When I get pressed about knowing if there's any more typos, I had said I'm really tired and will look at it tomorrow (I had to wake up at 6 AM the next day). Because it wasn't face to face and I had used a euphemism to basically say, I am not doing this now but will do it tomorrow, this was interpreted by the junior senior to me to be evidence of disrespect for their authority.

I got the full on yelling with cursing the next day, and they wound up complaining to the partner about the perceived disrespect, which led to a sit down meeting in which I took full responsibility for my lack of seriousness, because I thought that was the smartest play. Since then I've gotten much less work. Although i accepted full responsibility and kowtowed, I don't really think it's possible for normal people to be as effective between the 100 and 110th hour of the work week as they are during the 10th and 20th hour, and so much of when this gets exposed boils down to luck. I don't blame anyone for any of it nor do I blame myself because I tried my best. It's just unfortunate I got thrown onto something under a person with a reputation for being cruel when they're stressed.

Lacepiece23 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I had confused the names on a document I wrote at 2 in the morning on a Friday night, which resulted in a bad typo. I'm not making excuses but I had been working 15 hour+ days for 2 weeks straight which was mostly spent doing work that I realized from looking at the shared drive had never been opened. Between the hours, feeling I was waiting for Godot and being subjected to the tempers of one overzealous associate, I was starting to burn out.

Anyway, I get a call when I'm trying to find my way home. I had got the flu a few days earlier, but had no time to see a doctor and was so overtired I forgot what block I lived on so was basically circling around Manhattan walking like Frankenstein because of the approach-avoidance conflict on whether to just sleep on a park bench for a few hours.

So yeah, the phone rings and the associate asked how I could be so negligent to make the typo. I had also made a bunch of similar errors that same week all on work completed after 10 PM. Even though I printed and proofread, I had never worked so hard so consistently before that I would miss typos until about a week into the madness when I had trouble reading or coming up with words in conversation (if any conversation went deeper than "how are you?" I'd be at a loss).

Anywho, I apologize about the typo and explain I'm really exhausted. When I get pressed about knowing if there's any more typos, I had said I'm really tired and will look at it tomorrow (I had to wake up at 6 AM the next day). Because it wasn't face to face and I had used a euphemism to basically say, I am not doing this now but will do it tomorrow, this was interpreted by the junior senior to me to be evidence of disrespect for their authority.

I got the full on yelling with cursing the next day, and they wound up complaining to the partner about the perceived disrespect, which led to a sit down meeting in which I took full responsibility for my lack of seriousness, because I thought that was the smartest play. Since then I've gotten much less work. Although i accepted full responsibility and kowtowed, I don't really think it's possible for normal people to be as effective between the 100 and 110th hour of the work week as they are during the 10th and 20th hour, and so much of when this gets exposed boils down to luck. I don't blame anyone for any of it nor do I blame myself because I tried my best. It's just unfortunate I got thrown onto something under a person with a reputation for being cruel when they're stressed.

This sounds awful. My ego is way to big to every work for another junior. Are you assigned to this particular team or something? Dang, I'd be really upset. And the fact that a person with like a year more experience is degrading you. That is truly scary.

Lacepiece23 wrote:This sounds awful. My ego is way to big to every work for another junior. Are you assigned to this particular team or something? Dang, I'd be really upset. And the fact that a person with like a year more experience is degrading you. That is truly scary.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

Lacepiece23 wrote:This sounds awful. My ego is way to big to every work for another junior. Are you assigned to this particular team or something? Dang, I'd be really upset. And the fact that a person with like a year more experience is degrading you. That is truly scary.

Not justifying at all how anon was treated, but I'm not sure you're going to like biglaw very much.

Anonymous User wrote:Meanwhile, there's no Merry Christmas from the firm, certainly no bonus, and the office administrator had all "employees" (so associates and staff) buy the partners gifts. Sign me up to get the hell out of here!

Anonymous User wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

Lacepiece23 wrote:This sounds awful. My ego is way to big to every work for another junior. Are you assigned to this particular team or something? Dang, I'd be really upset. And the fact that a person with like a year more experience is degrading you. That is truly scary.

Not justifying at all how anon was treated, but I'm not sure you're going to like biglaw very much.

In other situations the juniors would give me a lot of help along the way. In hindsight a lot of this junior's orders were meant to embarrass me. For instance I was asked to ask a question I asked her to one of the partners in e-mail, and then ordered to follow up once they didn't reply in a half hour. I thought it seemed annoying, but they insisted it shows drive and determination and was "their strong opinion that I should respect". The optimist in me would like to think if I didn't in some way indicate I didn't respect their seniority, they wouldn't have sat down and plotted how to harm my career. I'll get passed it and be professional through and through, and still am confident that at the end of the day people will prefer working with the associate who smiles and is nice at 4 AM to a vindictive sociopath.

Dcc617 wrote:When I was in the army I had a totally insane battalion commander. My worst encounter with him was during his last few months in command, when I was in command of my company for a few months due to the other guy being relieved. So my BC had this ritual of calling me and the six other company commanders into his office and just cursing us out for like 45 minutes to an hour. He literally just had us all stand at parade rest while he called us fucking incompetent and pieces of shit. I did this every day for three months, until he left.

It really made my decision to leave the army a lot easier.

Anonymous User wrote: I got the full on yelling with cursing the next day, and they wound up complaining to the partner about the perceived disrespect, which led to a sit down meeting in which I took full responsibility for my lack of seriousness, because I thought that was the smartest play. Since then I've gotten much less work. Although i accepted full responsibility and kowtowed, I don't really think it's possible for normal people to be as effective between the 100 and 110th hour of the work week as they are during the 10th and 20th hour, and so much of when this gets exposed boils down to luck. I don't blame anyone for any of it nor do I blame myself because I tried my best. It's just unfortunate I got thrown into a sociopath's web early on.

LeDique wrote:Uh so how do I say "thank u bosses for not being batshit crazy like apparently ever other law boss out there"?

WestOfTheRest wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: I got the full on yelling with cursing the next day, and they wound up complaining to the partner about the perceived disrespect, which led to a sit down meeting in which I took full responsibility for my lack of seriousness, because I thought that was the smartest play. Since then I've gotten much less work. Although i accepted full responsibility and kowtowed, I don't really think it's possible for normal people to be as effective between the 100 and 110th hour of the work week as they are during the 10th and 20th hour, and so much of when this gets exposed boils down to luck. I don't blame anyone for any of it nor do I blame myself because I tried my best. It's just unfortunate I got thrown into a sociopath's web early on.

Let me tell you straight up, this wasn't the smartest play. In the normal world, this is often a great play, but not in biglaw. Egos are too big and there are too many people willing to throw you under the bus for their own advancement. This includes everyone from partner down to subordinate. If you are put in this position again, explain what happened and why it happened. It sounds like the junior above you has put you in a shitty situation and you should have explained that. This is especially the case where the person who is bitching about you is a junior or barely above you.

I believe that the reason the approach you took doesn't work in law is that there is an expectation that, as a lawyer, you will advocate for yourself and argue if something isn't how you see it. You need to play politics, but you need to learn when to advocate for yourself and when to just shut up and take it.

Anonymous User wrote: To be honest I had thought that anything I did that was wrong was a little wrong until a partner called me in, and I assumed I must have really fucked up until a few confidantes said that my first thought was right, and that I must have had serious trash talk for it to require a meeting. I've basically just been trying to improve my relationships with the other teams I'm on, which as been going really well because only about 1 in 100 people is a sociopath.

WestOfTheRest wrote:

Anonymous User wrote: To be honest I had thought that anything I did that was wrong was a little wrong until a partner called me in, and I assumed I must have really fucked up until a few confidantes said that my first thought was right, and that I must have had serious trash talk for it to require a meeting. I've basically just been trying to improve my relationships with the other teams I'm on, which as been going really well because only about 1 in 100 people is a sociopath.

Careful with your assumptions. That is the statistic for psychopathy in the general population, but lawyers have the second highest rate of psychopathy (after CEOs), so it's likely much higher.

rpupkin wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Meanwhile, there's no Merry Christmas from the firm, certainly no bonus, and the office administrator had all "employees" (so associates and staff) buy the partners gifts. Sign me up to get the hell out of here!

Wait...is this actually a thing at some places? Associates—and even staff—have to buy Christmas gifts for the partners? Crazy.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

Lacepiece23 wrote:This sounds awful. My ego is way to big to every work for another junior. Are you assigned to this particular team or something? Dang, I'd be really upset. And the fact that a person with like a year more experience is degrading you. That is truly scary.

Not justifying at all how anon was treated, but I'm not sure you're going to like biglaw very much.

Anonymous User wrote:

Lacepiece23 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I had confused the names on a document I wrote at 2 in the morning on a Friday night, which resulted in a bad typo. I'm not making excuses but I had been working 15 hour+ days for 2 weeks straight which was mostly spent doing work that I realized from looking at the shared drive had never been opened. Between the hours, feeling I was waiting for Godot and being subjected to the tempers of one overzealous associate, I was starting to burn out.

Anyway, I get a call when I'm trying to find my way home. I had got the flu a few days earlier, but had no time to see a doctor and was so overtired I forgot what block I lived on so was basically circling around Manhattan walking like Frankenstein because of the approach-avoidance conflict on whether to just sleep on a park bench for a few hours.

So yeah, the phone rings and the associate asked how I could be so negligent to make the typo. I had also made a bunch of similar errors that same week all on work completed after 10 PM. Even though I printed and proofread, I had never worked so hard so consistently before that I would miss typos until about a week into the madness when I had trouble reading or coming up with words in conversation (if any conversation went deeper than "how are you?" I'd be at a loss).

Anywho, I apologize about the typo and explain I'm really exhausted. When I get pressed about knowing if there's any more typos, I had said I'm really tired and will look at it tomorrow (I had to wake up at 6 AM the next day). Because it wasn't face to face and I had used a euphemism to basically say, I am not doing this now but will do it tomorrow, this was interpreted by the junior senior to me to be evidence of disrespect for their authority.

I got the full on yelling with cursing the next day, and they wound up complaining to the partner about the perceived disrespect, which led to a sit down meeting in which I took full responsibility for my lack of seriousness, because I thought that was the smartest play. Since then I've gotten much less work. Although i accepted full responsibility and kowtowed, I don't really think it's possible for normal people to be as effective between the 100 and 110th hour of the work week as they are during the 10th and 20th hour, and so much of when this gets exposed boils down to luck. I don't blame anyone for any of it nor do I blame myself because I tried my best. It's just unfortunate I got thrown onto something under a person with a reputation for being cruel when they're stressed.

This sounds awful. My ego is way to big to every work for another junior. Are you assigned to this particular team or something? Dang, I'd be really upset. And the fact that a person with like a year more experience is degrading you. That is truly scary.

It was confusing because it was a very important matter with very little time so stress was high. When I reflect on what went wrong, I think it's really the following:

There was a ton of data that nobody wanted to pour through so I volunteered, and it got put in my office and I basically read through and organized it over 30 casual hours or so. The when it got staffed a week later shit was hitting the storm, and we had to move fast. Because I was the only person who had skimmed the documents at this point, I had more value than a first year one month in would normally have. The senior associate who was on it wanted to get off so gave his role to the other associate who came in, and had to catch up to speed.

The conflict started because at the beginning, the partners would call me if they wanted a particular document or an overview of what was important because I had a week long head start. This upset the other associate who felt I was going around their back, that they're responsible for me and I therefore have to e-mail them before any partner. It seemed strange but I figured whatever, clearly their sensitive about this and I might as well make them happy. In hindsight, I should have jumped off the project then and there.

I had misinterpreted what was going on as being a product of poor communication on my part to not make it clear I respected their authority when in retrospect the obsession with authority is probably rooted in sociopathy ad I should have had the wisdom to jump off once it was evident the person wanted to fuck me. For the record I think they are a tremendous lawyer and are brilliant. My only gripe here is that once you harm a sociopath's ego, intentionally or unintentionally, you are setting yourself up to get fucked. because harming their ego would be like someone harming a non-sociopath's children - they gotta go.

Lacepiece23 wrote:I don't like it that much.

trbrny wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Lacepiece23 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I had confused the names on a document I wrote at 2 in the morning on a Friday night, which resulted in a bad typo. I'm not making excuses but I had been working 15 hour+ days for 2 weeks straight which was mostly spent doing work that I realized from looking at the shared drive had never been opened. Between the hours, feeling I was waiting for Godot and being subjected to the tempers of one overzealous associate, I was starting to burn out.

Anyway, I get a call when I'm trying to find my way home. I had got the flu a few days earlier, but had no time to see a doctor and was so overtired I forgot what block I lived on so was basically circling around Manhattan walking like Frankenstein because of the approach-avoidance conflict on whether to just sleep on a park bench for a few hours.

So yeah, the phone rings and the associate asked how I could be so negligent to make the typo. I had also made a bunch of similar errors that same week all on work completed after 10 PM. Even though I printed and proofread, I had never worked so hard so consistently before that I would miss typos until about a week into the madness when I had trouble reading or coming up with words in conversation (if any conversation went deeper than "how are you?" I'd be at a loss).

Anywho, I apologize about the typo and explain I'm really exhausted. When I get pressed about knowing if there's any more typos, I had said I'm really tired and will look at it tomorrow (I had to wake up at 6 AM the next day). Because it wasn't face to face and I had used a euphemism to basically say, I am not doing this now but will do it tomorrow, this was interpreted by the junior senior to me to be evidence of disrespect for their authority.

I got the full on yelling with cursing the next day, and they wound up complaining to the partner about the perceived disrespect, which led to a sit down meeting in which I took full responsibility for my lack of seriousness, because I thought that was the smartest play. Since then I've gotten much less work. Although i accepted full responsibility and kowtowed, I don't really think it's possible for normal people to be as effective between the 100 and 110th hour of the work week as they are during the 10th and 20th hour, and so much of when this gets exposed boils down to luck. I don't blame anyone for any of it nor do I blame myself because I tried my best. It's just unfortunate I got thrown onto something under a person with a reputation for being cruel when they're stressed.

This sounds awful. My ego is way to big to every work for another junior. Are you assigned to this particular team or something? Dang, I'd be really upset. And the fact that a person with like a year more experience is degrading you. That is truly scary.

It was confusing because it was a very important matter with very little time so stress was high. When I reflect on what went wrong, I think it's really the following:

There was a ton of data that nobody wanted to pour through so I volunteered, and it got put in my office and I basically read through and organized it over 30 casual hours or so. The when it got staffed a week later shit was hitting the storm, and we had to move fast. Because I was the only person who had skimmed the documents at this point, I had more value than a first year one month in would normally have. The senior associate who was on it wanted to get off so gave his role to the other associate who came in, and had to catch up to speed.

The conflict started because at the beginning, the partners would call me if they wanted a particular document or an overview of what was important because I had a week long head start. This upset the other associate who felt I was going around their back, that they're responsible for me and I therefore have to e-mail them before any partner. It seemed strange but I figured whatever, clearly their sensitive about this and I might as well make them happy. In hindsight, I should have jumped off the project then and there.

I had misinterpreted what was going on as being a product of poor communication on my part to not make it clear I respected their authority when in retrospect the obsession with authority is probably rooted in sociopathy ad I should have had the wisdom to jump off once it was evident the person wanted to fuck me. For the record I think they are a tremendous lawyer and are brilliant. My only gripe here is that once you harm a sociopath's ego, intentionally or unintentionally, you are setting yourself up to get fucked. because harming their ego would be like someone harming a non-sociopath's children - they gotta go.

I don't mean to offend -- just trying to be constructive. Your multiple posts are somewhat hard to read and are rife with grammar mistakes and typos. I understand that I should not be the grammar police in an online forum, but I certainly hope that your written (and oral) communication skills are better at the office. If not, WORK ON IT. Improving on that may go a long way to helping you gain some respect.

Also, screw the junior drill-sergeants. They are worthless people that attempt to make up for their lack of skills and talent by projecting their worthlessness onto others.

Anonymous User wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

Lacepiece23 wrote:This sounds awful. My ego is way to big to every work for another junior. Are you assigned to this particular team or something? Dang, I'd be really upset. And the fact that a person with like a year more experience is degrading you. That is truly scary.

Not justifying at all how anon was treated, but I'm not sure you're going to like biglaw very much.

In other situations the juniors would give me a lot of help along the way. In hindsight a lot of this junior's orders were meant to embarrass me. For instance I was asked to ask a question I asked her to one of the partners in e-mail, and then ordered to follow up once they didn't reply in a half hour. I thought it seemed annoying, but they insisted it shows drive and determination and was "their strong opinion that I should respect". The optimist in me would like to think if I didn't in some way indicate I didn't respect their seniority, they wouldn't have sat down and plotted how to harm my career. I'll get passed it and be professional through and through, and still am confident that at the end of the day people will prefer working with the associate who smiles and is nice at 4 AM to a vindictive sociopath.