Stressed

Going out of town is just plain stressful.  Things always blow up at work.  It's inevitable.  Clients don't go away just because you do.  And frequently they don't give a shit.  They just want what they want and it's always immediately.  I turned my out of office reply on this afternoon.  I have to leave at noon tomorrow and I just didn't want to get another email from someone wanting something from me before noon.  I only have so many hours tomorrow to do X number of things.  I simply can't add anything else to the pile.  You would think they would lay off a bit considering the fact that it is a holiday weekend and all.

So I have stress coupled with nerves which makes for a fun trip home as you can imagine.  I just can't figure out what the problem is with going there.

Anyway, I'm going.  I'm going because I have no plans to go there again this year.  This may be the last time I go there until next year.  Seriously.  I doubt I'll go for the holidays, although I guess that is a possibility.  The holidays are always uncertain.  There are definitely people that I would like to see and I guess I see it as a way to see my grandmother - hopefully it won't be one last time, but it would be nice to see her just in case.  I know that I posted way back in March that she was sick, well she is still in the hospital - long long story.  Anyway, it is impossible to predict what is going to happen with her.  My dad is optimistic, others are less so.  I told my dad that if God forbid something happens while I am in Arizona, I am not coming back.  I know some people won't agree with that decision, but my dad does and that is what matters to me when it comes to that one.

So I am a ball of stress right now and probably will be until I arrive there.  Honestly, the only thing I really want out of this trip is to go to the 5:35 AA meeting tomorrow at the Alano Club.  That's all I want, is to make that meeting.  I'm not going to meetings enough, which has nothing to do with whether or not I will drink, because I won't, it just has more to do with my ability to cope with stress generally and to just be in world comfortably.  I want to go to this meeting so bad that I might even try to leave earlier and just take some work with me.  I just feel like I have to make this meeting.  I have to.

I haven't booked a hotel yet though.  Do you think that's a sign?

Nerves

Every time I go home to Michigan I get nervous.  I question whether it is really a good idea to go or whether maybe I have lost my mind.  Usually I think maybe I have lost my mind.  I am thinking I have lost my mind.  I get nervous to the point of feeling physically nervous like days in advance.  Doesn't that kind of make it seem like I shouldn't go?  I feel that way every time and every time I go anyway.  And I get about half way there and think to myself, yup, this was a mistake.  Yet I continue because I've gone too far to turn around and go back.  I don't know what it is about the place.  I don't have all bad memories of living there so it can't be that the bad ones outweigh the good ones.  I just don't know exactly what the problem is.

I am planning to go to Michigan this Memorial Day weekend.  It's a good time to go (or is it) because it's a long weekend and honestly, I have no plans to be a in Michigan at any other point this year.  The holidays are questionable, likely I won't go home for those, and if I take any time off during the rest of the year it would be to go to Vermont to visit my brother and his family or to New York to visit a good friend of mine.

Anyway, I am going.  But I don't feel quite right about it.

Two weeks two days

Shockingly, that's how close my spa trip is.  I just booked the last piece of it which was to sign up for the zip line.  My spa services are booked, my rock climbing is booked, my "experience" is booked, my ticket is booked.  I'm good to go.  Now I just have the stress of packing and traveling.  I find the getting ready to travel part stressful for some reason, but once I am underway I am fine.  I am going to try to rock climb twice this week and next week.  I need to get some more climbing in before I go because I am climbing outdoors the second day I am there.  Oh, and the partner was like you should finish all of your projects before you go.  Awesome.  He is starting to panic that his vacation starts the day after mine ends so we have no overlap in the office to transition projects.  That means I won't see the partner for an entire month.  Awesome.

Happy birthday to me!

Today is my birthday and the anniversary of when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Let's forget about that part.  Today is my birthday.

Now all my eggs are in two baskets instead of one

My spa trip is coming up.  I just got the plane ticket.  10 nights it is.  I have to go for 10 in order to be able to rock climb outside and do the "experience."  It's just the way it worked out.  You are probably all wondering what the "experience" is and I am not going to tell you until it's over.  I may never tell you.  Anyway, I fully admit that all my eggs were in that basket.  I am counting on this to change me, in whatever way it is meant to change me.  I am quite sure, if nothing else, I will have learned something about myself.  But I know that sometimes it doesn't matter what you know, or how much self awareness you have, it is impossible to change it.  Nevertheless, for some reason, I feel drawn to this.  I am hopefully not foolishly optimistic.

And then I found out that the guy who is taking me out rock climbing the day after I get there is a licensed therapist, among other things.  For various reasons, I have to do a private rock climbing outing rather than a group (although I am sort of hoping someone else signs up but I doubt it) because it just worked out that way.  So I got to thinking, I get to spend 8.5 hours with a therapist while I rock climb.  Hmm, what better way to squeeze in a little therapy while rock climbing which to me is like therapy in itself.  Could be interesting.  I'll be curious to see what this is all about.  This rock climbing thing that I am doing is different than the one I did last year.  They have redone their outdoor climbing experience completely and they have this new guide that I don't already know.  I'm curious how much I could get out of this.

Of course that just brings to mind something that my favorite professor of all time said, which is that you get out of life what you put into, and that applies to everything you do.  So true.  But for some things, there is simply no "half assing" it.  You simply have to go for it.  This is trip is what you make it, that's for sure. 

Newbie

So I mentioned that the partner told me he started the process of getting us a new person.  I thought it was going to take forever.  Well it didn't, although it's not the ideal situation.  As things went, the firm had a whole incoming class of first years but we had no room for them.  We had no work for them.  Some of them have delayed start dates, some of them are placed at various clients for the year.  But the employment group took 3 of them and as it turns out, employment is over staffed.  So basically we are stealing (uh borrowing) a first year from employment.  It makes a little sense because some of what we do is employment related but it's also a little arbitrary.  Nevertheless, I wasted no time - I gave her two projects immediately.

Like I said, this is all a part of the partner's master plan, he becomes equity partner, I become partner, and someone becomes me.  Ironically, me and this new person have the same name.  The only thing that I am not sure about is having this person on loan.  What happens when the employment group gets busy again and we lose her?  We lose the person we just trained.  The kind of projects we do, we can't just give someone a one off project, you really have to be trained in the practice area.  In any event, I am going to train her as if we are keeping her, because I really need the help and I really need someone to know what they are doing.  We have a partner, one full-time senior associate (that would be me), one part-time senior associate and a staff attorney that we use when we are busy and another staff attorney that we sometimes use on certain types of projects.  The one staff attorney is pretty dedicated to our group and has learned really quickly and is trained pretty well, but even giving her work isn't lightening the load, at all.

Anyway, whenever the partner gives me a project, the first thing I ask myself is whether there is some possible way that I can get someone else to do it.  Now I have more options.

I have to be the only person on the planet

Because who else would possibly be overwhelmed with uncontrolled anxiety in the process of planning a spa vacation.  A spa trip for God's sake.  A relaxing vacation and I am almost so anxious in the process of planning it that I can't even get it done.  Who the hell would be stressed about planning a spa trip?  It just makes no sense.

Last night I went online to look at the schedule, pick my spa services and see if I could get in everything I wanted to during the dates that I selected to go.  Unfortunately the definite June schedule doesn't come out until the end of May.  Well when I found out I might miss outdoor rock climbing that was about it for me, I started to get anxious at the thought of changing the dates of my trip.

Part of the problem is, I can really only go to this place once a year, so I have to fit in the things I want to do.  This year I am doing the 4 day "experience" that is going to change my life as you know, but that takes up 4 full days.  Then there is the new zip line which just sounds like a lot of fun and of course I have to go outdoor rock climbing.  So how to fit these 3 things in is tricky when certain things are only offered on certain days.  So I just got stressed when I realized that I might have to change the dates and gasp, go for 10 nights.  Have I lost my mind?  10 nights?

Maybe he's on to me, or maybe he's not

The other day the partner told me that he is putting into motion the process of hiring a junior associate - a first year - for our little group.  Someone we can train.  He openly admitted that he wants a gunner, someone brand new who wants to work late every night.  Honestly, he will probably be able to find one of those amongst all the incoming first years who don't have placements within the firm yet.  They always want to impress, they are always willing to work late.  Except for the occasional fuck up.  I think he has clued in a bit to the fact that I am not willing to work the way I used to (late that is).

This is all a part of his grand plan.  We train a first year into a midlevel, he becomes equity partner and I become partner.  What he doesn't know (or maybe he does know), is that I am about to throw a wrench in his plan.

Probably one of a couple of things is happening.  Either he is putting the wheels of his plan in motion, or we are so busy that we absolutely have to have another person and it only makes sense to start with a new one.  He said he is turning away work because we don't have the capacity to do it.  We don't need another senior level associate (personally that would help me), we have two of those.  It only makes sense to start with someone we can train.  But ugh, training someone is painful.  Anyway, one of those two things is happening, he is trying to push his plan forward, or we are so busy that we just need another brain.  Or possibly a third thing is happening.  He might be on to me.  He might know that any day now I am going to sit down in his office and tell him that I am reducing my hours, thereby throwing the wrench in his plan.

I hate to make it sound like I am really important, because the reality is, if I died today, they would find a way to get the work done.  But still, without me, his operation grinds to a halt.  If I reduce my hours, well, we are all screwed.  So maybe he knows, maybe suspects, maybe he is trying to get another pair of hands before I do it.  I'm not sure.  I think he is probably not on to me actually.  I think he is probably clueless about this for the most part.  Unless HR told him which they weren't supposed to do.  I think he realizes that I am, for one reason or another that he doesn't know about, unwilling to work late anymore.  And I think we legitimately do need to train a new person.  It's just that his grand plan that he is trying to execute on - at some point - I am going to have to tell him I don't want to be a part of the plan.  It's just that I can't tell him that now.  I have to act as if this is what I want.  Reducing my hours though would also slow me down for making partner.

I don't want to be a partner.  I want to stay a senior associate forever.    Work the hours I want to work, keep my workload manageable and be left alone.  I'm willing to work reasonable hours, and I'll do the work.  I'll get it done and I will do it well, correctly, on time.  But I just don't want to be partner.  And if I have to leave at some point to avoid it, I guess I'll leave.  What usually happens is if people last this long, and decide to leave for a company, it is right before they make partner.  It is a prime time to go in house.

I feel bad about it though.  Whether it is now or later, I am screwing the group over.  And I feel a bit of loyalty to this group of people.  They were great to me when I had breast cancer, they gave me my leave of absence with no difficulty, the person I work for is nice and for the most part, easy to work for, he is laid back and never stressed.  He's never said a word to me about the time I take off, the days I leave early, the days I want to work from other states.  I can't really say that there has been too much bad about  my job.  Yes there are continuing communication problems and yes the pressure about hours these past 4 months has been difficult to deal with, but all in all, I can't say much bad about this job.  So whatever I do, and whenever I do it, I am going to feel bad about it.  That is probably part of the reason I haven't been able to get myself to do it - to tell him I am reducing my hours.  I keep delaying because I feel bad.  But I have to watch out for myself right and do what is best for myself, right?  Even if it isn't the best for the group?