Admission in Book Four: Ichi-no-Tani 2017

Here is the interesting thing. Why does my situation do such a good job of making me feel foolish? Why does every job in the law that I take feel worse and worse?

I think, if I am going to be brutally honest… a large part of that has to do with the build up and the vulnerability.

On my drive back home today after a stressful day (the new norm is likely “stressful”) and I was thinking… if I do get disbarred by fucking something up (or fired… for fucking something up) then I could work at a Bank as a teller and make about the same kind of money with less stress. And that thought made me feel really… happy. The idea of getting fired, not working in the law, and doing a job that I know I could do easily? That made me feel better. Until I realized why.

From college, I looked forward to law school. From law school, I looked forward to being a prosecutor. From being a prosecutor, I looked forward to getting out of Tiny Town.

Now… I look forward to either being good, earning money, or spending time with my family. Right now… being good and earning money are the monstrously stressful parts of my life right now and they are keeping me from time with my family. So… the easy was seems better.

And I don’t have excuses really. Yeah, I’m learning. But my issues lately aren’t “learning” at least not all of them. I’ve been working for the firm for 4 months. My firm expects me to be better, smarter, more capable. They aren’t entirely wrong. I’m working for two people who literally work non-stop. From 5 in the morning until 10 at night; they work from home until 9, come to the office, go back home for meals and continue to work there. They’ve done that for years. So 4 months of my time (800 hours) actually translates to 3 months for them. I’m a month too slow. But the bigger issue is… I’m missing stuff right in front of me. Like… a text message that said “I need you to cover for me next week. Tuesday 11:30. I’ll send you more details later.” I put it on my calendar for Tuesday at 8. Boss sent me an e-mail lecturing me on typos and making sure that my calendar isn’t sloppy. I told him that his text didn’t have a time on it so I was waiting for the more details promised. Boss did NOT like that. He already does NOT trust me to not do incredibly shitty work. He thinks I am a fuck up; which is why Chinese Boss had to demand that he give me some of his work to do… so I can learn.

Great start.