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.