Vermont

I am headed to Vermont today to visit my brother and his family.  I won't be able to post anything from there because I will only have my work computer, but hopefully I will have some cute pictures to post when I get back.

See you then...

This anxiety is killing me

With all of this stress about having to find another job, being honest with the partner, fucking up a project at work and my work load/the fact that things are way behind, my anxiety level is killing me.  I just don't know how much more anxiety I can take.

Tomorrow if the weather is nice, I am going to Central Park to walk around.  Just to think I guess.  Although what is there to think about?  I already have a plan.  And I have a pretty good sense of how to execute the plan.  But damn, I don't think I have felt this anxious ever in the history of feeling anxious.  The medication I take for it is just plain not working.  Like not at all.

The only worry that I have about my plan and its execution is whether I have stamped an expiration date on my job.  Is the partner only going to be willing to help me for so long?  Is he going to say in 6 months if we haven't found the right job, you are out?  That is the one variable that I don't know.  I need to pin that down.

Although I have done the calculation in my head many times over.  It is far better to have the partner's help and have a 6 month expiration date than to try to do this on my own.  The partner knows nearly everyone within our professional circle.  He is really well known, really well respected, and he said there is a lot he can do to help me.

I am sitting around playing the game in my head of whether or not to go this way, when really I think I am already too far down the road to go back.  So onward it is.

On a limb, or a ledge maybe

I did the unthinkable.  Anyone with half a brain would tell you not to tell your boss you are planning to quit until you have another job.

To be fair, that's not exactly how the conversation went.  He opened the door, I just decided to walk through it.  And no, I didn't tell him I am leaving yet.  I am supposed to be "thinking" about it for another couple of weeks.  Do a little soul searching while I am in Vermont visiting my brother's family.

It all came up in the context of my annual review and the pressure that has been/is being put on me to make partner.  And as you know, I have been struggling with this decision.  Or at least I was, until I made it.  To make the half hour conversation short, he basically said if you want to make partner I will help you do that, if you want to leave the firm I will help you do that, and help you make sure you find the right job.  Whatever you want to do I will help you be successful.   He said he would start making phone calls, do whatever he could to help me.  Wow, right?  Oh yeah - and they won't let me go while I find my next job.  I get to keep working there while I find it.

So as I mentioned, maybe, I can't remember - he knows someone at Google who might be able to get me the job there.  It is also possible that there could be an opportunity at Apple for me.  All in all, the conversation with the partner went better than I ever could have expected.  And the prospect of a new job is pretty exciting.

So why do I feel so bad?

Down

I feel down.  Down about my current work situation.  Down about my prospects.  Just down.

Why?

In AA we always say it just takes what it takes.  There is no real reason why.  You can't force a person into a AA, they get there when they get there.  We all get there differently, and more or less the same.  For me it took a couple of bad nights, a little reflection and some curiosity.  For that I was lucky.

But why did it take moving 750 miles across the country with my job to realize that I need to leave my job?  I don't know.  I don't know if I would have realized it if I was still in Chicago and everything was the same as it was before.  I don't think moving out here was the wrong thing, I just think that, for better or worse, it accelerated the inevitable.  Coming out here was admittedly an experiment.  One where I was trying to make my job work and where I would be able to consider the real possibility of making partner.  There were even some moments of being excited about my job and the prospect of a slightly different career.  I felt like I had options, possibilities - something like reinventing my job in a way.

Well, obviously things have changed.  Drastically.  I am trying not to feel desperate to get out of my job because I don't think desperation makes for good decision making.  And I need to make a good decision.  I feel like I have come to some sort of peace about it though and the fact that it could take a long time.  This job that I want so badly - it will or it won't happen.  And if it doesn't, I have faith that something better will come along.  The outcome of all of this may not be what I think I want.  It may not look the way I want it to or the way I think it should look.  But, it will work out how it is supposed to.

This job that I want  - it just seems too good to be true.  It feels like the job of a life time.  Like this kind of opportunity doesn't come along more than once.  I am wary of saying that and believing that though.  It's just dangerous I think to view anything in such an absolute way.  And I think that although it feels true, I can't exclude the possibility that something actually better will come along.  Besides, when I took the job I have, I thought the same thing.  I thought it was the chance of a lifetime to advance my career and maybe a once in a life time opportunity to get a job at a very well respected law firm and the largest law firm in the world.  Turns out that it was the right career move for me at the time and probably has opened up possibilities that I wouldn't otherwise have had.  It's just now I see it for what it really is.  Only a stepping stone to something greater.    

Laying it on the line

I have tough choices ahead of me.  This decision that I made is a big one.  The execution is something else entirely.

I have kept this decision from the partner because you can't exactly go to your boss and say so I am going to give notice eventually, but not yet, so just hang tight a while so I can figure this thing out.  Oh yeah, and if you can, help me while I am at it.

Or, maybe you can.

This is a really tough call.  I talked to my colleague about it.  She works for the same person.  Her recommendation is that I confess that the partnership track is not for me and that I am looking to move to an in-house position.  She feels confident that although he would be disappointed, he would help me find and get the right position.  She felt certain that he would be nothing but helpful in making a transition.

And, I found out today that my contact at Google left Google like three weeks ago to go work for Apple, which means one of two things - either I need  a little more help getting the Google job, or perhaps there could be one at Apple.  Either way, I also found out today that the partner knows this contact better than I thought.

Perhaps laying it on the line would mean that the partner would help me seal the deal.  But what if laying it on the line means I am given only X amount of time to find a new job before I am fired?  What if laying it on the line means I get let go immediately?  Laying it on the line changes, well, everything.

From coast to coast

If you have read my past two posts then you know what is going on.  Right now I feel that I have to consider all options open in order to get out of my firm.  I know that sounds a bit desperate, but I am desperate.  That being said, this needs to be a carefully and well thought out choice that I make because I am making a turn on my career path.  I need to make sure it is the right turn.

I am applying for a job with Google at their headquarters in California.  I just hope that the posting is still current and the position hasn't been filled.  My background is perfect for the position and I have a little bit of an in there.  I know the person who is the head of the legal "department" that this position is in.  I am not sure if this position reports to her or not, but I am hoping she can at least help me a little.

Fingers crossed!

Finite

I'm getting the sense that my time at my job is limited - because I am not "playing the game" very well.  By "playing the game" I mean I am not acting as if I want to make partner.  It's pretty hard to act as if you want something when, well, you really don't.  And the acting as if part involves working your ass off beyond anything reasonable and doing all kinds of things that you don't want to do.

I've been skating by for years (that's actually not really a fair characterization, because I have done my share of trying over the years) and now that it's close to time for me to make partner, well, all eyes are on me.  Exactly where you don't want them to be when you are doing, um, the absolute bare minimum to bill enough hours and going home.  I have the work load of like three people.  I could work all night and never catch up, so I just go home.

Well I had a little chat with the partner when he was in town visiting the other day.  More like a really one sided conversation where he told me all the things I would have to do to make partner and everything that sucks about the job.  He told me that there is no such thing as work life balance, there is only work life.  He told me that you don't get to have any personal life and that you have to work late hours and not see your friends and family.  He said it was all consuming, that it is stressful, but a good kind of stressful (wait, what?  Who the fuck seeks that out?).  Anyway, like I said, he didn't say one single positive thing about it.  He didn't even mention the pay check.  I can already tell you though, that the paycheck wouldn't be worth it.  My pay check is barely worth it as things currently stand.

I left the conversation thinking wow, I was just told that I can't make partner, keep this job and have a baby.  Now of course that is not what he said, not in those words, but that is the first thing that popped into my head.  And he did sort of say it without saying it.  What am I supposed to say to the question, "do you want to make partner?"  How am I supposed to answer that?  Am I supposed to say no and run the risk of losing my job?  Can I say no and not actually lose it?  Would they give me time to find another job or would they just let me go?  The problem with my job is that it is an "up or out" kind of place.  You either make partner or you leave.  I am right in that unfortunate middle ground.

In the nine years that I have been out of law school, I have never been so crystal clear about what I want.  I have always wavered and always wondered if I made a wrong choice in becoming a lawyer.  I don't know what I ultimately want.  I don't know for what company I want to work for or what position I want to have.  I don't know where I want it to take me.  I just know, with absolute certainty, that I am headed in the wrong direction.

I moved because I wanted to change my life.  I wanted to make my job work.  I wanted to be closer to my brother's family.  Funny how things work out, because boy are they going to change.