Musings of a Worker Bee

Oh you’re wondering where I went to again, aren’t you?  You’re even considering just deleting the direct link for my blog since I hardly update it and it’s doing nothing but cluttering up your favorites.  I understand.  I really do. 

PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME!  *sobs dramatically*

Alright, I’m better now.

For those who don’t know, I’ve been unemployed for the better part of 2.5 months.  This is the second such case in the span of two years.  It has not been fun if you’re wondering and I’m sure you are.  The first one was due to a lay-off, the second one was because the company was…okay let me stay professional and not comment overmuch on it.  All I can say is that we (“we” being the firm HR and myself) didn’t quite see eye-to-eye on most things.  We parted ways with a bit of congeniality and a lot of angst.  I was so not upset when I walked out of that place with the one and only possession I really kept there, a painting of a sunset from Jamaica.

However the idea of having no money to pay bills did sort of stop me from leaving the firm after the first day of employment (yes, it was just that bad) and kept me there until my ‘boss’ said to me that a normal 40 hour work week was just not enough to be a successful employee in that place.  Um okay. 

Never mind that for the nearly month prior to this conversation  I had been working up to an excess of 70+ hours or that I was there so much that I had to drag in personal hygiene products to work so that I didn’t unnecessarily offend anyone with work stink.  Never mind that I rarely saw P awake or that I couldn’t even remember what it was like to eat a normal meal at home that didn’t have to be microwaved.  Never mind that I used to dream of privilege logs and SOW’s.  Yea, never mind all that.  She clearly didn’t.

There was also the fact that I had long since started to feel a sense of unrest regarding my chosen profession.  Yes, I wanted to be in law but didn’t want to go to law school.  My idea of a good life was never to spend 300K in tuition, join a law firm and become the slave to the executive committee (or partners for that matter).  No offense to any of you partners out there who may be reading this.  So I chose the paralegal profession not realized the following:

1.  It’s a thankless job
2.  You work incredibly long arduous hours
3.  You get treated like crap
4.  You get looked down upon for being “just a paralegal”
5.  You get asked questions such as “why didn’t you go to law school?  You couldn’t get in?  You’re too smart to be doing what you’re doing!”  (This is when I have to really bite my tongue and not spit out venomously “No wanker, I did get in, I was just too smart to actually go…now move on and go talk down to someone else…a-hole.”)
6.  You will never ever be respected as a professional from anyone other than those who work directly with you.

There are more reasons but I think these are enough.  I know I blogged about this before so go back and read if you’re that curious.

It took a while to get to the point where I actually handed in my notice, mostly because I knew that I didn’t want to go from the frying pan directly into the fryer but I had absolutely 0 clue as to how to make any sort of leap into another profession.  I’ve been a Paralegal since graduation and that’s all I’ve ever been.  There was also the pesky problem of having no money.  Whatever I did, I had to do it fast, that much I was certain.

I truly was lost as to the next step in my professional career.  How did I grow?  How would I advance?  How would I make myself relevant and stay that way in a world where even people my age were becoming swiftly irrelevant in the face of automation?  What possible field could I slip seamlessly into without starting right at the bottom?  These questions plagued me for a long time but near the end of my stay with the last job they were starting to clamor for an answer.  I had none.

Then one day I met with a dear friend (who actually was an attorney at one of my prior firms) and he said to me “remember, in order to take a step forward, you’ll have to take a step back”.  He also told me to look into myself and figure out what most brought me satisfaction and joy.  Seemed like an easy enough thing to do but I can tell you it wasn’t.  He was my own personal wise Yoda, except he wasn’t all that short and not green. 

I found myself plopped upon the leather sofa at home brooding.  I would stare at nothing in particular while the little hamster wheel in my head turned and turned.  Eventually I totally had a ‘come to Jesus moment’ and the dim bulb in my head shown bright.  I knew what I wanted to do, what I found pleasure and passion in, no matter how cheesy that may sound.

After that life took on a bizarre turn.  I spent hours scouring job posts and applying but in many ways my efforts were almost demonic.  When I wasn’t searching and applying I was taking long drives thinking about the searching and applying.  The market wasn’t great but P assured me that financially we were okay for a while yet.  As most of you can attest to, when you have a two income family already set up, it’s hard to go to a single but we pulled up our grown-up pants and tightened our proverbial belts.  I will happily declare that P was amazing during this time.  He stepped back and let me figure out my path without interference.  In fact my whole family was pretty darn great about it as were my friends.  I felt as if (this time) I wasn’t a failure, I was just simply making a shift and it was okay.

I have joined a new place now.  It is still in my industry; I’m still working with lawyers but rather on the opposite side of the spectrum, meaning I’m more on the consultancy side.  Not that I’m consulting, no at the end of the day I did take a step back but it was a good healthy one.  Now my environment has drastically changed.  The folks here are congenial, fun and very welcoming.  It is no less intense than any firm but somehow that’s okay.   I have been given an office bigger than any one I had prior and it even has a window.  When first shown to my new little part of the world, I leaned into the HR person S and whispered to her “are you sure this is my office?”

She looked slightly flummoxed.  She leaned back and said “yes, I’m sure, why?”

I glanced about a bit nervously and responded, “this just can’t be it, I’m sure there’s a broom closet that has my name outside its door.”

She seemed quite sad by this statement (although I had managed to squeeze in a little laugh to alleviate any awkwardness), took me by the arm to the corridor and pointed at my name plate.  “Is this your name?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then this is your office.”  Well she told me (with a squeeze of my arm and a laugh).

As soon as I was alone I took pictures and texted those to a few loved ones. 

I don’t know if you can fully appreciate what this small little thing meant to me.  May be some of you out there has always had a big office with a window (and balcony).  May be your voice was always listened to and your advice is taken seriously.  May be you aren’t marginalized and always looked right through.  But for me, other than those teams that I worked with closely, these things have always and consistently happened to me. 

Do you know how this feels?  Do you have any clue how frustrating it is when you work day in and day on a project where you never ever get credit?  Do you have even an inkling of how degrading it is when you go home after a very long stressful day and realize you never even received a thank you for all your efforts?  Do you know what it’s like to lie in bed and think to yourself “I’m just not important in the grand scheme of things, am I?  These people do not in the least appreciate me at all simply because I didn’t go to law school.”

To have an instant where you’ve reduced your whole professional life to these questions simply suck.  To have these things flash through your mind all the time simply suck worse.  It beats you down and embitters you.    It takes a normally happy upbeat person and turns them into a scowling angry bitchy soul. 

I had been there.  I had turned into one of those people who woke up in the mornings and spent far too long staring up at the ceiling trying to convince herself to get up, go to work, it’ll be fine.  But during the last year in particular it was never really quite ‘fine’.  The brightest silver lining of that experience was the friends I made.  Dear ones that shall always be apart of my existence moving forward and even if I had never been validated by my “superiors” at least my counterparts knew what I was worth.  This was enough.

I don’t know what the future holds, not here, not anywhere.  Who does, right?  But I can tell you this (and I’m sure many have over the years, I’m just reiterating):  You’re future may be set by God, but you have to be proactive about it.  You have to get off your duff and go find whatever your ‘ultimate’ is and yes nothing is ever handed to you on a beautiful gleaming silver platter.  We wish it were otherwise and may be a few lucky individuals out there have had that luck but for the rest of us every day human drones/cogs/minions, it’s just one big ol’ struggle isn’t it?  We just hope and pray that with enough good deeds, enough toiling and struggling, enough honesty and perseverance, we will be rewarded.

I’m not taking for granted that I still won’t have those mornings when I’m firmly one with my mattress wishing there was a huge snow storm that would make it impossible for me to go to work, that’s normal but for now I’m satisfied (Allhamdulillah) and Allah (swt) has heard me and my prayers.  What else more can I want? 

(A lot more but let me not sound like a total ingrate.)