So this is totally predictable and cliché (half the hellishness of BigLaw is that there are never any surprises), but this past week I got to take an actual vacation for the first time since I passed the bar—to go to my Nonna’s funeral. On my outbound flight, I nursed a whiskey and diet coke and repeated lines straight from the cynical associate script. I half-sketched a bitter rant about the pathetic state of life at my firm, which is so suffocating that it takes death for a litigation associate to be permitted to take some freaking time off, and the twisted irony of being permitted a much-needed vacation only because a loved one died.
That, however, was before I spent the entire weekend with my family.
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As a mediocre midlevel at a top law firm, I haven’t really considered plans for my “future.” I always sort of let the tide take me to this place of bitterness. However, many of my friends are starting to make “plans.” Actually, it seems like most of them have already mapped out their lives.
Of my closest 4 friends from law school: One moved to a small firm outside of NY because he’s married with kids (and therefore dead to me), two have moved to smaller firms in Miami because it’s a better life and they are from there and they are basically cheesy Miami dudes at heart (not dead to me, because I need a place to stay in Florida), and one works at a BigLaw firm in NYC, but he’s looking to get out asap. He’s the one that is actually causing me to stress out, because he just enlightened me to the devaluation of a midlevel scale.
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A rather expensive psychic told me in February that I would experience a “great shift in my thinking and perception” in 2011. Turns out she was right. I’ve just had an epiphany that my approach to dating is certain to lead to cataclysmic failure and doom—and now I get why it’s no damn wonder that every single one of my quasi- and pseudo-relationships has crashed and burned.
My (massively flawed) approach to men over the course of the last three years goes something like this: find acceptable man, marry him, and bear his children as soon as humanly possible so I can retire from the practice of law. Which means I’ve been approaching guys as if they were life preservers—as if each one constitutes a flotation device imbued with the unique ability to rescue me from drowning in the misery of my profession.
No wonder I have such a knack for repelling guys. I positively reek of desperation.
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It’s a little-known secret that I was a big firm summer associate at Dorsey & Whitney in 1971. For two weeks and three days. So, while Bitter Lawyer already has a solid list of the Nine Summer Associate Don’ts, it doesn’t cover the less deadly sins that often apply to people like me and you. For that, I have my own experience and observations. Surprisingly, not much has changed.
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(Click the image to see the full comic.)
Men are curious when it comes to “huge ropes.” You don’t really think about it (or most men don’t, anyway), unless someone happens to plant the seed in your mind—and you happen to have a perfect opportunity to confirm or disprove the myth for yourself.
Rope: LIVING the DREAM, Webisode 7
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you already made the gravest error an educated person can possibly make in his or her lifetime, i.e. law school. Everything about that decision virtually guarantees a life of inescapable misery. It’s like walking into a Vegas casino with your life savings (most of it borrowed) and wagering it all at Casino War.
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As summer starts heating up, I have to decide whether I’m gonna break two of my rules. Things that I decided I was not gonna do anymore while I still have a job in the shithole economy:
1. Bang any summer associates.
2. Attend any wedding of my asshole colleagues.
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It’s hard to argue with advice like “don’t be an asshole” and “don’t get wasted,” but not all these tips are so obvious.
Nine Summer Associate Don’ts
