I Just...Can’t Forum

[Anonymous User]

I’m sure everyone’s different, but I’m a third year and I’ve been doing the whole “hate 97% of your waking life” and “worry during the other 3% that you’re going to get an email and have to drop everything” for two and a half years. Work haunts my dreams.

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

Any advice you could provide would be tremendously appreciated.

[nealric]

I’m sure everyone’s different, but I’m a third year and I’ve been doing the whole “hate 97% of your waking life” and “worry during the other 3% that you’re going to get an email and have to drop everything” for two and a half years. Work haunts my dreams.

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

Any advice you could provide would be tremendously appreciated.

If you want to interview, you are just going to have to make up an excuse to be unavailable. They may be suspicious, but most likely they will just be annoyed. If it's a good opportunity, then it's worth looking into. You won't be fired on the spot because you missed a conference call or two.

[rcharter1978]

I’m sure everyone’s different, but I’m a third year and I’ve been doing the whole “hate 97% of your waking life” and “worry during the other 3% that you’re going to get an email and have to drop everything” for two and a half years. Work haunts my dreams.

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

Any advice you could provide would be tremendously appreciated.

When I have this type of anxiety,not helps me to have a "plan b" or to game out the worst case scenario.

Like nealric says, you make up an excuse or a doctor's appointment or an illness.....and let's say you get fired on the spot. That's the worst thing right?

Then what are you going to do. Are you going to take on contract work? Are you going to collect unemployment? Are you going to drive for Uber? What will an acceptable explanation be to future employers in this situation?

I always feel like anxiety and stress once I've gamed out the worst case scenario and realize that even if the worst thing happens, I can still deal with it.

[pi_lawyer]

I’m sure everyone’s different, but I’m a third year and I’ve been doing the whole “hate 97% of your waking life” and “worry during the other 3% that you’re going to get an email and have to drop everything” for two and a half years. Work haunts my dreams.

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

Any advice you could provide would be tremendously appreciated.

Come to the other side: public interest, government, in-house. You can be a lawyer and have a decent quality of life.

[papermateflair]

I’m sure everyone’s different, but I’m a third year and I’ve been doing the whole “hate 97% of your waking life” and “worry during the other 3% that you’re going to get an email and have to drop everything” for two and a half years. Work haunts my dreams.

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

Any advice you could provide would be tremendously appreciated.

Have you taken a sick day recently? Take one tomorrow. Develop food poisoning overnight, send an email at 5:30 am telling the partners you won't be in because you have food poisoning, and don't come in to work. No one expects you to go to the doctor for food poisoning, and I promise you no one wants the details on your experience, so you can be back at work on Monday (or Saturday, if you have to go in on weekends) fully recovered and no one will be suspicious. Also it's flu season, so if you get an interview in a few weeks, boom, it's flu time. It sucks that you're having such a bad winter, what are the odds of getting food poisoning AND the flu!

Spend your sick day tomorrow making a plan. Can you take a vacation with no access to your phone (camping - you don't actually have to go camping, just go somewhere in the woods with no reception, or maybe a cruise) in a couple of months to re-set, and come back and just...care less about your job? Can you lateral, and start over with new boundaries? If you normally answer emails within 15 minutes, try responding in 20 minutes, then 25, then 30. If you think what you're going through is pushing past normal stress or otherwise think it could be helpful to have some new tools to handle the stress, can you see a therapist? Take FMLA? All of those things are better than being this stressed out and unhappy. You shouldn't be hating 97% of your waking life, no job is worth it.

If you want to stay in big law, you can find a place that works better long term. Maybe switch practice areas. Switch markets if you're in NYC. Talk to your friends from law school or ask people here if there are areas they would recommend for a better work life balance.

[NoLongerALurker]

I’m sure everyone’s different, but I’m a third year and I’ve been doing the whole “hate 97% of your waking life” and “worry during the other 3% that you’re going to get an email and have to drop everything” for two and a half years. Work haunts my dreams.

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

Any advice you could provide would be tremendously appreciated.

. . . Can you take a vacation with no access to your phone (camping - you don't actually have to go camping, just go somewhere in the woods with no reception, or maybe a cruise) in a couple of months to re-set, and come back and just...care less about your job? . . . If you normally answer emails within 15 minutes, try responding in 20 minutes, then 25, then 30. . . .Maybe switch practice areas.

As someone who felt like OP a year ago, and who did the above, I can't possibly stress enough how good this advice is.

[jacketyellow]

I’m sure everyone’s different, but I’m a third year and I’ve been doing the whole “hate 97% of your waking life” and “worry during the other 3% that you’re going to get an email and have to drop everything” for two and a half years. Work haunts my dreams.

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

Any advice you could provide would be tremendously appreciated.

Come to the other side: public interest, government, in-house. You can be a lawyer and have a decent quality of life.

As someone who did THIS, I can say this is the best advice. 9-5:30 with every Friday off as a "work from home" kinda day.

[AVBucks4239]

As I just posted in another thread, the worst case scenario you've imagined in your brain is incredibly unlikely to come to fruition.

During my 2L summer, I got no-offered after two big-name partners left my mid-size firm. I thought I was fucked; I ended up getting an internship (and eventually a job) at a 20 lawyer firm in my hometown.

When I started to get miserable at that local job, I went to work with another solo, since that is what I wanted to do. This relationship was a complete disaster. My wife and I took a trip to Maine and I decided I didn't want to work with this solo anymore; I came back and put my notice in right away. I lasted three months.

Then I launched my solo practice, which has been going for about 20 months now. I had five clients when I started, with two of them being actual real clients that others would want. My receipts are $186,000 to date, or about $9,000 per month. I know everyone says this, but I'm truly a nobody with no family connections or political ties. I've just really researched my market, done a lot of work I didn't want to do but paid decent money, and made it all work.

So my advice is this -- take a long weekend. Your firm will carry on, I promise. If they don't then you should quit right on the spot. That won't happen, so take your long weekend. Think about things. Map out your future. Map out a break maybe. Look at your savings. If you have a decent nest egg and have a plan together to land somewhere in 6ish months, you'll be fine.

You'll come out much better than you imagined. It almost certainly won't be my path, but you'll be fine. I promise.

[logical seasoning]

I was in the same position as you a year ago.I took a government gig and am much, much happier.

No amount of money or prestige is worth biglaw if you are mentally/emotionally/physically suffering

[jacketyellow]

No amount of money or prestige is worth biglaw if you are mentally/emotionally/physically suffering

PREACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Johnnybgoode92]

How long until someone says “I learned to code”?

[Bllljd115]

You just have to make setting boundaries your priority. It might be something you can do gradually or you might just have a triggering moment.

A couple years ago I realized that my responsiveness to emails/calls was killing my productivity (plenty of research on this) and making my life miserable. I set a rule - respond to email once per hour and never pick up calls on the first ring. My productivity shot way up because I got used to responding to emails in batches, leaving more time for real work. And most of the people who were calling me didn't actually need a response or emailed if they had a quick question which I could then respond to at my leisure. I now very rarely have a day in the office after 6 pm. If people ask me why I didn't get back to them I say I was in a meeting or on a call.

Getting more senior also helps. 75% of the crap I deal with on a daily basis can be done by someone with a college degree. I delegate aggressively. I used to view delegation as something to do when I just had too much work each day. Now it is my first response to any assignment I get, and it leaves me way more time to review and edit others' work and deal with fire drills during the day while knowing other work is being taken care of.

As a junior this is much harder, but some tips are just being more communicative with your supervisors about deadlines and delegating parts of projects to paralegals.

[Anonymous User]

You just have to make setting boundaries your priority. It might be something you can do gradually or you might just have a triggering moment....

Getting more senior also helps. 75% of the crap I deal with on a daily basis can be done by someone with a college degree. I delegate aggressively. I used to view delegation as something to do when I just had too much work each day. Now it is my first response to any assignment I get, and it leaves me way more time to review and edit others' work and deal with fire drills during the day while knowing other work is being taken care of.

When you delegate, do you just do it and tell whoever is above you about it? Do you ask? Or do you wait to see what the person above you suggests? (These questions assume you're not a partner.)

Asking because I'm struggling as a midlevel to focus on substantive work that forwards the ball on my career, and I'm trying to set boundaries with people with respect to stuff that can be done by someone more junior in a way that's constructive.

[PeanutsNJam]

You just have to make setting boundaries your priority. It might be something you can do gradually or you might just have a triggering moment....

Getting more senior also helps. 75% of the crap I deal with on a daily basis can be done by someone with a college degree. I delegate aggressively. I used to view delegation as something to do when I just had too much work each day. Now it is my first response to any assignment I get, and it leaves me way more time to review and edit others' work and deal with fire drills during the day while knowing other work is being taken care of.

When you delegate, do you just do it and tell whoever is above you about it? Do you ask? Or do you wait to see what the person above you suggests? (These questions assume you're not a partner.)

Asking because I'm struggling as a midlevel to focus on substantive work that forwards the ball on my career, and I'm trying to set boundaries with people with respect to stuff that can be done by someone more junior in a way that's constructive.

This seems very firm, practice group, and partner dependent. I've worked on teams where the lead partner is "I don't care how you guys divvy it up," and then midlevels/seniors have free rein to delegate. Some teams are far more structured. Also probably depends on junior to senior proportions. If you've got a lot of seniors with few juniors, you'll have trouble delegating since people will be fighting over juniors for their cite check/diligence/research/whatever needs.

[NoLongerALurker]

You just have to make setting boundaries your priority. It might be something you can do gradually or you might just have a triggering moment....

Getting more senior also helps. 75% of the crap I deal with on a daily basis can be done by someone with a college degree. I delegate aggressively. I used to view delegation as something to do when I just had too much work each day. Now it is my first response to any assignment I get, and it leaves me way more time to review and edit others' work and deal with fire drills during the day while knowing other work is being taken care of.

When you delegate, do you just do it and tell whoever is above you about it? Do you ask? Or do you wait to see what the person above you suggests? (These questions assume you're not a partner.)

Asking because I'm struggling as a midlevel to focus on substantive work that forwards the ball on my career, and I'm trying to set boundaries with people with respect to stuff that can be done by someone more junior in a way that's constructive.

Midlevel here. I delegate heavily to paralegals and word processing staff and never mention it to seniors. When delegating to junior lawyers, I always give a heads up (since it shows up more directly on the bill), but as a leading question. "Can you look at this?" "Sure, I'll get XYZ to take a first pass and discuss with her?" "Sounds great" ---- also means there's a chance for partner/senior to be like "No, you should just do it." I'd say my attempts to delegate down like that are successful about 60% of the time, but in general probably make me look a little lazy. Sometimes senior is like "Are you busy?" and I'm like "No" and he's like "Well, how about you just handle it?". If I was planning to stay in biglaw forever I'd be more cautious about that aspect (ironically, since surviving biglaw for longer would make delegation all the more important)

[Bllljd115]

You just have to make setting boundaries your priority. It might be something you can do gradually or you might just have a triggering moment....

Getting more senior also helps. 75% of the crap I deal with on a daily basis can be done by someone with a college degree. I delegate aggressively. I used to view delegation as something to do when I just had too much work each day. Now it is my first response to any assignment I get, and it leaves me way more time to review and edit others' work and deal with fire drills during the day while knowing other work is being taken care of.

When you delegate, do you just do it and tell whoever is above you about it? Do you ask? Or do you wait to see what the person above you suggests? (These questions assume you're not a partner.)

Asking because I'm struggling as a midlevel to focus on substantive work that forwards the ball on my career, and I'm trying to set boundaries with people with respect to stuff that can be done by someone more junior in a way that's constructive.

Typically I do not inform partners how I am delegating because their reflexive reaction when asked is going to be to have the most expensive/experienced person do everything. I will ask when they need it by, in order to make sure it is not a fire drill that would just be quicker for me to do it. I set hard deadlines for juniors so the projects do not get lost in the ether. I always make sure to review everything the junior person sends before it goes to the partner so that I have that cover. At the end of the day, as long as the work gets done at an acceptable level on deadline they don't care who made the primary effort.

This means I spend much of my day anticipating the next project before it hits and affirmatively suggesting projects and then delegating, but I find that much more preferable and orderly than being reactive to assignments. Basically, my day is just working through a bunch of checklists.

Note that I always make sure to give the juniors credit for good work and take responsibility for any mistakes. You delegate tasks, not final responsibility.

[FND]

I always make sure to give the juniors credit for good work and take responsibility for any mistakes. You delegate tasks, not final responsibility.

Greatest comment I've ever seen on this matter

[BaiAilian2013]

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

This is the part I never understand. Maybe it's a life-stage thing. Like haven't you ever had to go to the doctor, or the dentist or the eye doctor, or wait for a repair guy to come, or take a family member to the airport, or anything? There are a million reasons you might be unavailable that are not remotely your employer's business. You have an appointment. You don't owe them any more information than that. "An appointment", period.

[Anonymous User]

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

This is the part I never understand. Maybe it's a life-stage thing. Like haven't you ever had to go to the doctor, or the dentist or the eye doctor, or wait for a repair guy to come, or take a family member to the airport, or anything? There are a million reasons you might be unavailable that are not remotely your employer's business. You have an appointment. You don't owe them any more information than that. "An appointment", period.

OP here, first off, thanks to everyone for their comments- I truly appreciate it, and while I’ve never been a “social media” person, every person who has commented actually has made me feel a little bit better, even if I’m not sure what I can do on a practical level to change things (can’t take vacation anytime soon because of deals scheduled to launch/close). I guess I can respond to emails five minutes later, but don’t think that would be that beneficial from an emotional perspective.

Regarding the “appointment” point- sure I could probably have ONE appointment once in awhile, but the issue becomes scheduling interviews with a number of different firms/companies who want you to come in and spend 2+ hours with them. Hard to have “appointments” once or twice a week for two hours at a time, but honestly I’m not sure how you can escape any other way. At least for me, more stress results from whether it’s worth it to try to escape for this interview (and chance of freedom) at the (perceived) risk of losing my job.

[rcharter1978]

It’s hard/impossible to even interview since I can’t block off time to be unavailable without my partners finding out (as I have calls and meetings with them daily and with no notice).

This is the part I never understand. Maybe it's a life-stage thing. Like haven't you ever had to go to the doctor, or the dentist or the eye doctor, or wait for a repair guy to come, or take a family member to the airport, or anything? There are a million reasons you might be unavailable that are not remotely your employer's business. You have an appointment. You don't owe them any more information than that. "An appointment", period.

OP here, first off, thanks to everyone for their comments- I truly appreciate it, and while I’ve never been a “social media” person, every person who has commented actually has made me feel a little bit better, even if I’m not sure what I can do on a practical level to change things (can’t take vacation anytime soon because of deals scheduled to launch/close). I guess I can respond to emails five minutes later, but don’t think that would be that beneficial from an emotional perspective.

Regarding the “appointment” point- sure I could probably have ONE appointment once in awhile, but the issue becomes scheduling interviews with a number of different firms/companies who want you to come in and spend 2+ hours with them. Hard to have “appointments” once or twice a week for two hours at a time, but honestly I’m not sure how you can escape any other way. At least for me, more stress results from whether it’s worth it to try to escape for this interview (and chance of freedom) at the (perceived) risk of losing my job.

Then you have to "plan b" what happens if you lose your job. Once you have a plan in place for the worst possible outcome, you'll feel better.

I also think that it's natural for you, or anyone, to think that their behavior is suspect if they aren't being entirely honest. But people are embroiled in their own things.

While it might be a little weird that you have multiple appointment around the same time....I would think that as long as your work is getting done it won't be much more than a fleeting "huh, that's weird"

But to you, it probably seems super huge and obvious and they are just sitting around all day suspicious and upset.

And even if they are....again, it won't matter because you will have gamed out the worst case scenario of getting fired.

Who knows, they may catch on that you're trying to leave and will offer you more money or whatever. Or perhaps they will understand you want to leave and work something out with you that allows them to slowly look for a replacement.

[nixy]

Yeah, OP, I completely get feeling this way, but I think you're catastrophizing about the interviews a bit. You can make up appointments; people do have recurring appointments (maybe you injured yourself and need physical therapy...), they do get sick, they have to wait for their fridge to be repaired or such. It's not as big a deal to people as it feels to you. (I'm not saying you should give out specific false reasons, just that there are lots of plausible explanations people can come up with if they're wondering.) And as you said, there isn't really any other way to get a new job, but people obviously do get new jobs, all the time, so clearly this is what people do.

Also, lateral hiring isn't like OCI - you're not likely to have a huge cluster of interviews all at one time. Or, if you are in a position where you do, you're likely going to get something fairly easily and shouldn't worry this much.

[AVBucks4239]

OP here, first off, thanks to everyone for their comments- I truly appreciate it, and while I’ve never been a “social media” person, every person who has commented actually has made me feel a little bit better, even if I’m not sure what I can do on a practical level to change things (can’t take vacation anytime soon because of deals scheduled to launch/close). I guess I can respond to emails five minutes later, but don’t think that would be that beneficial from an emotional perspective.

Regarding the “appointment” point- sure I could probably have ONE appointment once in awhile, but the issue becomes scheduling interviews with a number of different firms/companies who want you to come in and spend 2+ hours with them. Hard to have “appointments” once or twice a week for two hours at a time, but honestly I’m not sure how you can escape any other way. At least for me, more stress results from whether it’s worth it to try to escape for this interview (and chance of freedom) at the (perceived) risk of losing my job.

From my experience, other people are way too busy to even have the mental energy to hypothesize that you may be interviewing. Tell them what you're doing and it will leave their brain and just think, "Oh, they'll be back in two hours."

With that said, I can be neurotic as hell, so I always did excuses that had a two-fer. So a dentist's appointment, and then a cavity appointment a week later, isn't suspicious. Dermatologists and then a follow up for that huge mole on my back. Taking mom to the airport and then picking her up. There's a ton of these that won't raise any eyebrows.

Most importantly, if you have as much anxiety as you say you do about your job, the consequences of getting fired are much lower than you think. You'll probably get a decent severance and end-up in another job soon. You'll be fine no matter what.

[TigerIsBack]

Just say you need to work from home for like 2 days...house repairs or something if anyone asks. You need to be home while the contractors work. That gives you a full day anytime you need it (and then during the 2 hour time you're interviewing, just tell people you're on a call for another matter, and no one will know it's not true since they can't physically see you).