A Quick Paint Job in Book Five: Working Through the Maze 2018

The city this morning is covered in white. The first time since 2015 that more than 3 to 5 inches of snow accumulated. Which of course makes it difficult to really do much of anything unless you can either (1) stay home; or (2) have too much to do to stay sedentary.

Of course… I cannot stay home. Even if I had a fever of 105. This, too, is a significant reason to quit. Because any time I have ever called in, I have been expected to work. Maybe that is the new “professional expectation” in the world… no sick days… but for someone in my position? If I am taking a day because I need to rest (translation: extreme pain coursing through my body) than I need to rest. If you require me to work through that pain, I am going to make mistakes. Because if I thought “No problem, I feel good enough to work.” I would have bloody well come in to work! But no. Calling in is never an option for rest. And as to staying home and just working from home? As so many attorneys do because we live in a digital age with cell phones so the majority of the job can be done from a coffee shop if one so chose. But alas, no. My presence is required in the office (literally) “for if Chinese Boss needs me.”

But the problem with that? The flip side? LoL. Lets just say it is a damned good thing that I am turning in my resignation at the end of the week because I won’t be getting anywhere near the billable goal that they set for me. Who knew? When the world comes over frozen, people are less interested in leaving home. And (true story) crime is tragically linked to Calendar and Forecast. Holidays will always see a spike in crime. Forecast depends on the city. In Omaha, the first major snow would be quiet… the fourth would create Domestic Issues. Because the longer people had to deal with each other, the more likely crime was to occur. However, no predictor was as great as “Good Weather” for crime. As soon as it became consistently warm enough to be outside again? That is when you’d see Crime Return to a consistent level.

About billable hours, to put it into perspective: When I started here, having never done Private Work before… having never tracked billing before… and spending large portions of the first few weeks doing unpaid training.... my very first “billable hours” page was 11 hours that week. I accrued 11 billable hours. In order to “pay off” my salary, I need to accrue 19.2 billable hours per week. I hit it and am now consistently floating between 22 hours and 27 hours. So, now my bosses have told me that I need to accrue 30 billable hours per week to meet quotas. Ultimately, that means that I would getting around $324 more per week while the firm got between $324 and $1836 (depending on if it was a private case or not) per week. I’ve been doing fairly well. Between 27 and 30.1 hours for the last few weeks. But this week just won’t be anywhere close! My current To-Do List will take around 6 to 10 hours to complete. Add that to the 3 billable hours I recorded yesterday and… this is going to be a subpar billing week. If I wasn’t going to resign at the end of the week… I would imagine a very loud and uncomfortable talking to next week when I turn in my hours.

Both my wife and I are looking forward to the time after resigning though. Granted, logically, this could all be a nightmare. We may discover in a few months time that this is the worst decision we ever made (wouldn’t be the first time)… but genuinely… we’re looking forward to a little down time. Between not having to keep dry cleaning suits, to not having to pay for excessive travel costs, to not having to cancel plans at a moment’s notice… not to mention being able to (fingers crossed) finally feel well rested and be able to do more than just “work” and “crash in exhaustion.” That will be nice. ALSO fingers crossed that I can lose some weight, too, now that I won’t just be “Sitting at a desk for 10 to 12 hours a day only to go home and pass out.”