So, I'm sitting peacefully in my office not ten minutes ago, contemplating why exactly it was that I felt it was perfectly OK to forget everything I'd ever learned in Property (which, honestly, wasn't much anyway) five minutes after the exam, when the nice little cleaning man came by. He's always been very polite and we usually chat a little. So we go through the usual "hey, sucks to be working on a saturday, doesn't it, how's your family, bla bla" and then, out of the blue, he says "Can I say something off the record?" Um, well, it's America, say whatever you want. And he goes on to explain how he knows that Large Organization where he used to work pays its lawyers over $100K a year "just for walking up and down the hall with a cup of coffee." (Sidenote: it infuriates me when people make assumptions like that -- law is complex, complicated and intellectually challenging and if you're practicing it with any kind of diligence, you need coffee breaks and vacation breaks, otherwise you might break.) Then he tells me that I should really think about working for them, because the money's better and you have grab opportunity when it's presented, and by the way, did I know that Gigundo Regional Firm had a big ad in the paper today looking for a lawyer they want to pay $150K/year to, and why don't I go there? Because there's no reason a "young person such as [my]self" should be here, where all the partners are "old" and could decided to just "up and leave," and then where would I be, and why don't I want to make more money?
It is a bad bad sign when even the cleaning people think you're underpaid. On the other hand, I'm annoyed -- a) I hate it when people bash things I care about, and I think it's mightily rude -- just because they're my employers doesn't mean that this is that stupid "Office Space" movie and I hate them... b) anyone who's read almost any of my recent posts knows that, money be damned, I'd rather be treated like a human being. (Then again -- how virtous we can be when the chance doesn't present itself otherwise...)
I'm so cranky I have to go get more coffee -- is nine espresso shots on a non-weekday bad?
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