What's On Your Mind?

[bruhh]

thinking about how if i get rejected from med school, I get to move to alberta and be able to finally snowboard on real mountains while increasing chances of getting in to alberta schools...kind of actually excited.

[Sigmund Freud]

Just had an interview for a summer job at a penitentiary. Feeling really nervous about it because they said I need a car to get to the workplace because there is no transportation there, and me being the honest person that I am told them that I don't have my licence, to which my interviewer made an almost pained sound... but I stated that I would have no issues taking a cab if worst comes to worst because they're paying me enough that I could afford that and that it's more about the experience than the money...

 

       

[IMislove]

Just had an interview for a summer job at a penitentiary. Feeling really nervous about it because they said I need a car to get to the workplace because there is no transportation there, and me being the honest person that I am told them that I don't have my licence, to which my interviewer made an almost pained sound... but I stated that I would have no issues taking a cab if worst comes to worst because they're paying me enough that I could afford that and that it's more about the experience than the money...

 

       

WHAT that actually sounds really interesting!! What's the position?

[Sigmund Freud]

WHAT that actually sounds really interesting!! What's the position?

If I end up getting hired, I could be doing a number of things, but I'd mostly be doing office/admin assisting. It's hard to tell because they didn't really give me much info on the job since there's multiple positions. But apparently I could be doing a variety of things, including interacting with the inmates (perhaps to deliver a form or answer any questions they have.)

 

I'd really like to get the position because it's relevant to my current degree and it also would be good preparation for a career as a psychiatrist. Plus, I have relevant experience and skills that I think would make me a great candidate for the job.

[RichardHammond]

Any Top Gear fans here saddened by the news of Jeremy Clarkson getting sacked?

[xcon2run]

Any Top Gear fans here saddened by the news of Jeremy Clarkson getting sacked?

YUP. Saw it coming though unfortunately....

[makingfetchhappen]

This is a REALLY LONG RANT, SORRY!
 

Here is what is on my mind today:

I am really sick of greedy people who exploit other people!

The other day, I got the spring issue of this lifestyle magazine for Canadian lawyers. Everyone in law reads it. It’s fun. I always see people I know in it, yada yada.
 

This issue’s theme says “How to do it all: advice from 14 of Toronto’s most productive lawyers.”

So, I am thinking “Yes! Productivity tips here I come!”

Ya, no.
 

The thing is a breakdown of all these people’s insane and stupid schedules. There is one lawyer who is 30 years old and a recent call, but the rest are late 30s to mid 40s and about 10-15 years out (i.e. since they were called to the bar).

Every single one of them says their normal schedule is 60 hours a week or more. And then they go into the wonderful details!

Typically they wake up at some un-Godly hour, go to the office for 10-12 hours, go home and have dinner with their families, and then it’s back to work for another 2-4 hours. One woman even goes back to the office from 9-midnight after her kids are asleep. All this even though she’s already put in a 9 hour day before she goes home for dinner.

Typically they seem to have put aside a maximum of 6 hours for sleeping each night. And of course, you gotta go into the office on the weekend, at least for a few hours.
 

They all seem extremely proud of the fact that they see their children for an hour or two on weekdays. As if taking a dinner break in the middle of a 14 hour work day is some amazing feat of work-life balance.
 

And then of course there are the details of how they manage their personal lives: nannies, house-keepers, stay at home spouses, personal trainers who visit their home gyms, recharging at a pricey restaurant or spa, and on expensive vacations of course.
 

Okay, so now you are wondering: why does she care what these people do with their time, and what does this have to do with greedy people who exploit others?
 

Well, it all comes back to this stupid culture that the legal profession has been propagating since the dawn of time. This idea that you can work like this for decades and maintain your sanity is just so far from the truth. Very few people can work at full-throttle for decades at a time, least of all people who literally fight for a living. Working in the adversarial system is fine, but it’s very negative. You need a chance to get away from the constant arguing.
 

But the worst thing about this culture is the culture of greediness and exploitation. I am so grateful and lucky that I work for myself with great business partners who treat me fairly, but I have not always been so lucky and many of my friends and peers are not.
 

Example: A couple of years ago I interviewed with a very prominent Bay Street lawyer for an associate position. This lawyer has no partners and never has, so the role was basically to be an associate forever (no financial pay-off to look forward to other than possible gradual raises).

He told me that he typically works 14 hours a day (home for dinner and then back at night Mon-Thurs), but Fridays he leaves at 5 or 6 then works 8 hours on Saturdays. I would be expected to do the same. So that’s 72 hours a week, and of course it changes to 14 hours a day 7 days a week during trial.
 

The salary? $100,000, no bonus. Okay, nothing to sneeze at. But, at this point I am a 5^th year lawyer.
 

He’s going to be billing me out at $350 an hour. At that rate, I should be billing and collecting at least $500,000 a year. Half a million dollars! And I get one fifth? And it’s not like I can afford to outsource the rest of my life at this salary, like the lawyers in the magazine.

How many millions of dollars does this guy make in a year? Let’s see. He probably bills well over a million a year for his own time with his higher rate. Taking overhead into account (including support staff), I would say that he makes minimum another $2 million off of his associate’s billings. Associates that he has no plans on ever making partner or sharing profit with. So it’s “$3 million for me, $100K for the rest of you!”

I politely told him to go f himself.
 

It’s greedy and gross and it bugs the hell out of me.
 

And yes, I have been at the other side of the table, at a much smaller scale. When I pay someone to work for me, I generally pay them more than market rate, even though I can scarcely afford to. Why? I don’t know, because I actually have a conscience?
 

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to compare law and medicine here. Just ranting about greedy people in general, and a toxic culture in law in particular. I know that medicine has its own problems and that med students get it worse than young lawyers in lots of ways. For example, residents seem to have to deal with a lot more poor treatment than articling students do. 

[Friendly Magpie]

This is a REALLY LONG RANT, SORRY!

 

Here is what is on my mind today:

 

I am really sick of greedy people who exploit other people!

 

The other day, I got the spring issue of this lifestyle magazine for Canadian lawyers. Everyone in law reads it. It’s fun. I always see people I know in it, yada yada.

 

This issue’s theme says “How to do it all: advice from 14 of Toronto’s most productive lawyers.”

 

So, I am thinking “Yes! Productivity tips here I come!”

 

Ya, no.

 

The thing is a breakdown of all these people’s insane and stupid schedules. There is one lawyer who is 30 years old and a recent call, but the rest are late 30s to mid 40s and about 10-15 years out (i.e. since they were called to the bar).

 

Every single one of them says their normal schedule is 60 hours a week or more. And then they go into the wonderful details!

 

Typically they wake up at some un-Godly hour, go to the office for 10-12 hours, go home and have dinner with their families, and then it’s back to work for another 2-4 hours. One woman even goes back to the office from 9-midnight after her kids are asleep. All this even though she’s already put in a 9 hour day before she goes home for dinner.

 

Typically they seem to have put aside a maximum of 6 hours for sleeping each night. And of course, you gotta go into the office on the weekend, at least for a few hours.

 

They all seem extremely proud of the fact that they see their children for an hour or two on weekdays. As if taking a dinner break in the middle of a 14 hour work day is some amazing feat of work-life balance.

 

And then of course there are the details of how they manage their personal lives: nannies, house-keepers, stay at home spouses, personal trainers who visit their home gyms, recharging at a pricey restaurant or spa, and on expensive vacations of course.

 

Okay, so now you are wondering: why does she care what these people do with their time, and what does this have to do with greedy people who exploit others?

 

Well, it all comes back to this stupid culture that the legal profession has been propagating since the dawn of time. This idea that you can work like this for decades and maintain your sanity is just so far from the truth. Very few people can work at full-throttle for decades at a time, least of all people who literally fight for a living. Working in the adversarial system is fine, but it’s very negative. You need a chance to get away from the constant arguing.

 

But the worst thing about this culture is the culture of greediness and exploitation. I am so grateful and lucky that I work for myself with great business partners who treat me fairly, but I have not always been so lucky and many of my friends and peers are not.

 

Example: A couple of years ago I interviewed with a very prominent Bay Street lawyer for an associate position. This lawyer has no partners and never has, so the role was basically to be an associate forever (no financial pay-off to look forward to other than possible gradual raises).

 

He told me that he typically works 14 hours a day (home for dinner and then back at night Mon-Thurs), but Fridays he leaves at 5 or 6 then works 8 hours on Saturdays. I would be expected to do the same. So that’s 72 hours a week, and of course it changes to 14 hours a day 7 days a week during trial.

 

The salary? $100,000, no bonus. Okay, nothing to sneeze at. But, at this point I am a 5^th year lawyer.

 

He’s going to be billing me out at $350 an hour. At that rate, I should be billing and collecting at least $500,000 a year. Half a million dollars! And I get one fifth? And it’s not like I can afford to outsource the rest of my life at this salary, like the lawyers in the magazine.

 

How many millions of dollars does this guy make in a year? Let’s see. He probably bills well over a million a year for his own time with his higher rate. Taking overhead into account (including support staff), I would say that he makes minimum another $2 million off of his associate’s billings. Associates that he has no plans on ever making partner or sharing profit with. So it’s “$3 million for me, $100K for the rest of you!”

 

I politely told him to go f himself.

 

It’s greedy and gross and it bugs the hell out of me.

 

And yes, I have been at the other side of the table, at a much smaller scale. When I pay someone to work for me, I generally pay them more than market rate, even though I can scarcely afford to. Why? I don’t know, because I actually have a conscience?

 

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to compare law and medicine here. Just ranting about greedy people in general, and a toxic culture in law in particular. I know that medicine has its own problems and that med students get it worse than young lawyers in lots of ways. For example, residents seem to have to deal with a lot more poor treatment than articling students do. 

 

I've never understood this mentality myself. I also have a job (although I'm on leave right now)  that  sometimes requires long hours (although not as much as law), and there are some people that like to boast about how many hours they work and how they were "at the office until 10 pm working on a problem blah blah blah". We have to do on call and I can understand having to go in if it's necessary (I've been pulled out of bed in the wee hours of the morning before), but I don't see the point of staying late or heading into work after hours when it's something that can wait until the next day.

 

I think that you often see a culture in medicine where some physicians think that because they had to practically live at the hospital when they were in medical school or residency, that everyone should have to. I understand that people have to work long hours when needed to treat patients, but not at the expense of personal safety for both the med student or resident and the patients themselves (opening a whole new can of worms here I'm sure  ). 

 

I look at it this way. I've never seen someone's obituary mention how many hours per week they worked.   I've also never heard of anyone saying "Gee, I wish I would have spent even less time with my family and worked more often." When it comes to money, it seems that some people can never have enough of it. 

[makingfetchhappen]

Yes I used to get the mentality myself, but now I do not anymore.

 

I actually think residency is unique in that they can work the residents very hard for long hours and they are actually getting something from it. When a doctor is seeing patients, work is being done. This is different than most other knowledge workers who generally spend their time writing.

 

I can get more writing done when I have a deadline or when I am in trial, and at those times I am working long hours, but only because it's necessary.I don't do it "just because". Also, I pretty much run on adrenaline at these times and that's how the work gets done. I don't even know if employers benefit all that much by having a long hours mentality.

 

And then of course there are other problems of long hours like you mentioned. They may be getting work out of residents working long hours but of course errors go up with fatigue. You also run the risk of burning out your employees over the long run and that's not good for anyone either.

[Birdy]

Didn't get into MUN. Now I just need to wait to hear from Mac.

[aaronjw]

Didn't get into MUN. Now I just need to wait to hear from Mac.

 

That sucks. Sorry to hear that

[Friendly Magpie]

Didn't get into MUN. Now I just need to wait to hear from Mac.

Sorry to hear that, Birdy. I'm hoping that McMaster comes through for you.

[medafter30]

the uneasy feeling of being on the wait list is much harder than I thought.... oh well

[rmorelan]

Didn't get into MUN. Now I just need to wait to hear from Mac.

 

drat, ok. well hopefully Mac then.

 

stay focused. Not easy I know.....

[Hopefullll]

Shucks Birdy,

Sorry to hear that! I'm rooting for you for Mac

[Depression]

I have the worst canker sore on the inside of my cheek at the moment.  Must be the stress from exams or something. ._. 

[makingfetchhappen]

I have the worst canker sore on the inside of my cheek at the moment.  Must be the stress from exams or something. ._.

 

 

 

They sell these patches for canker sores at Shoppers. I get them when I am stressed too.

[RichardHammond]

I have the worst canker sore on the inside of my cheek at the moment. Must be the stress from exams or something. ._.

I'll trade my stress pimples/acne for your stress canker sore! I'll do anything to get rid of this mutant interview-induced zit haha.

[makingfetchhappen]

I'll trade my stress pimples/acne for your stress canker sore! I'll do anything to get rid of this mutant interview-induced zit haha.

Have you tried benzoyl peroxide? That sort of pimple can hurt, but it should hurt less than a canker sore with the a bit of zit cream!

[Depression]

They sell these patches for canker sores at Shoppers. I get them when I am stressed too.

 

Really? Will have to pick some up tomorrow. Thanks ! 

 

I'll trade my stress pimples/acne for your stress canker sore! I'll do anything to get rid of this mutant interview-induced zit haha.

 

Hah!

[Harvey Specter]

This is a REALLY LONG RANT, SORRY!

 

Here is what is on my mind today:

 

I am really sick of greedy people who exploit other people!

 

The other day, I got the spring issue of this lifestyle magazine for Canadian lawyers. Everyone in law reads it. It’s fun. I always see people I know in it, yada yada.

 

This issue’s theme says “How to do it all: advice from 14 of Toronto’s most productive lawyers.”

 

So, I am thinking “Yes! Productivity tips here I come!”

 

Ya, no.

 

The thing is a breakdown of all these people’s insane and stupid schedules. There is one lawyer who is 30 years old and a recent call, but the rest are late 30s to mid 40s and about 10-15 years out (i.e. since they were called to the bar).

 

Every single one of them says their normal schedule is 60 hours a week or more. And then they go into the wonderful details!

 

Typically they wake up at some un-Godly hour, go to the office for 10-12 hours, go home and have dinner with their families, and then it’s back to work for another 2-4 hours. One woman even goes back to the office from 9-midnight after her kids are asleep. All this even though she’s already put in a 9 hour day before she goes home for dinner.

 

Typically they seem to have put aside a maximum of 6 hours for sleeping each night. And of course, you gotta go into the office on the weekend, at least for a few hours.

 

They all seem extremely proud of the fact that they see their children for an hour or two on weekdays. As if taking a dinner break in the middle of a 14 hour work day is some amazing feat of work-life balance.

 

And then of course there are the details of how they manage their personal lives: nannies, house-keepers, stay at home spouses, personal trainers who visit their home gyms, recharging at a pricey restaurant or spa, and on expensive vacations of course.

 

Okay, so now you are wondering: why does she care what these people do with their time, and what does this have to do with greedy people who exploit others?

 

Well, it all comes back to this stupid culture that the legal profession has been propagating since the dawn of time. This idea that you can work like this for decades and maintain your sanity is just so far from the truth. Very few people can work at full-throttle for decades at a time, least of all people who literally fight for a living. Working in the adversarial system is fine, but it’s very negative. You need a chance to get away from the constant arguing.

 

But the worst thing about this culture is the culture of greediness and exploitation. I am so grateful and lucky that I work for myself with great business partners who treat me fairly, but I have not always been so lucky and many of my friends and peers are not.

 

Example: A couple of years ago I interviewed with a very prominent Bay Street lawyer for an associate position. This lawyer has no partners and never has, so the role was basically to be an associate forever (no financial pay-off to look forward to other than possible gradual raises).

 

He told me that he typically works 14 hours a day (home for dinner and then back at night Mon-Thurs), but Fridays he leaves at 5 or 6 then works 8 hours on Saturdays. I would be expected to do the same. So that’s 72 hours a week, and of course it changes to 14 hours a day 7 days a week during trial.

 

The salary? $100,000, no bonus. Okay, nothing to sneeze at. But, at this point I am a 5^th year lawyer.

 

He’s going to be billing me out at $350 an hour. At that rate, I should be billing and collecting at least $500,000 a year. Half a million dollars! And I get one fifth? And it’s not like I can afford to outsource the rest of my life at this salary, like the lawyers in the magazine.

 

How many millions of dollars does this guy make in a year? Let’s see. He probably bills well over a million a year for his own time with his higher rate. Taking overhead into account (including support staff), I would say that he makes minimum another $2 million off of his associate’s billings. Associates that he has no plans on ever making partner or sharing profit with. So it’s “$3 million for me, $100K for the rest of you!”

 

I politely told him to go f himself.

 

It’s greedy and gross and it bugs the hell out of me.

 

And yes, I have been at the other side of the table, at a much smaller scale. When I pay someone to work for me, I generally pay them more than market rate, even though I can scarcely afford to. Why? I don’t know, because I actually have a conscience?

 

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to compare law and medicine here. Just ranting about greedy people in general, and a toxic culture in law in particular. I know that medicine has its own problems and that med students get it worse than young lawyers in lots of ways. For example, residents seem to have to deal with a lot more poor treatment than articling students do. 

Come work for me at Pearson Specter Litt, I guarantee you a good position with some of the brightest people I know.

We have this one guy who has a photographic memory and may have not actually gone to law school. We also have this other guy who's very anal about everything and likes causing trouble... but he's a goof in general. Our boss is a controlling psychotic hypocritical dick... but at least my secretary is awesome! 

[武田信玄]

This is a REALLY LONG RANT, SORRY!

 

Here is what is on my mind today:

 

I am really sick of greedy people who exploit other people!

 

The other day, I got the spring issue of this lifestyle magazine for Canadian lawyers. Everyone in law reads it. It’s fun. I always see people I know in it, yada yada.

 

This issue’s theme says “How to do it all: advice from 14 of Toronto’s most productive lawyers.”

 

So, I am thinking “Yes! Productivity tips here I come!”

 

Ya, no.

 

The thing is a breakdown of all these people’s insane and stupid schedules. There is one lawyer who is 30 years old and a recent call, but the rest are late 30s to mid 40s and about 10-15 years out (i.e. since they were called to the bar).

 

Every single one of them says their normal schedule is 60 hours a week or more. And then they go into the wonderful details!

 

Typically they wake up at some un-Godly hour, go to the office for 10-12 hours, go home and have dinner with their families, and then it’s back to work for another 2-4 hours. One woman even goes back to the office from 9-midnight after her kids are asleep. All this even though she’s already put in a 9 hour day before she goes home for dinner.

 

Typically they seem to have put aside a maximum of 6 hours for sleeping each night. And of course, you gotta go into the office on the weekend, at least for a few hours.

 

They all seem extremely proud of the fact that they see their children for an hour or two on weekdays. As if taking a dinner break in the middle of a 14 hour work day is some amazing feat of work-life balance.

 

And then of course there are the details of how they manage their personal lives: nannies, house-keepers, stay at home spouses, personal trainers who visit their home gyms, recharging at a pricey restaurant or spa, and on expensive vacations of course.

 

Okay, so now you are wondering: why does she care what these people do with their time, and what does this have to do with greedy people who exploit others?

 

Well, it all comes back to this stupid culture that the legal profession has been propagating since the dawn of time. This idea that you can work like this for decades and maintain your sanity is just so far from the truth. Very few people can work at full-throttle for decades at a time, least of all people who literally fight for a living. Working in the adversarial system is fine, but it’s very negative. You need a chance to get away from the constant arguing.

 

But the worst thing about this culture is the culture of greediness and exploitation. I am so grateful and lucky that I work for myself with great business partners who treat me fairly, but I have not always been so lucky and many of my friends and peers are not.

 

Example: A couple of years ago I interviewed with a very prominent Bay Street lawyer for an associate position. This lawyer has no partners and never has, so the role was basically to be an associate forever (no financial pay-off to look forward to other than possible gradual raises).

 

He told me that he typically works 14 hours a day (home for dinner and then back at night Mon-Thurs), but Fridays he leaves at 5 or 6 then works 8 hours on Saturdays. I would be expected to do the same. So that’s 72 hours a week, and of course it changes to 14 hours a day 7 days a week during trial.

 

The salary? $100,000, no bonus. Okay, nothing to sneeze at. But, at this point I am a 5^th year lawyer.

 

He’s going to be billing me out at $350 an hour. At that rate, I should be billing and collecting at least $500,000 a year. Half a million dollars! And I get one fifth? And it’s not like I can afford to outsource the rest of my life at this salary, like the lawyers in the magazine.

 

How many millions of dollars does this guy make in a year? Let’s see. He probably bills well over a million a year for his own time with his higher rate. Taking overhead into account (including support staff), I would say that he makes minimum another $2 million off of his associate’s billings. Associates that he has no plans on ever making partner or sharing profit with. So it’s “$3 million for me, $100K for the rest of you!”

 

I politely told him to go f himself.

 

It’s greedy and gross and it bugs the hell out of me.

 

And yes, I have been at the other side of the table, at a much smaller scale. When I pay someone to work for me, I generally pay them more than market rate, even though I can scarcely afford to. Why? I don’t know, because I actually have a conscience?

 

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to compare law and medicine here. Just ranting about greedy people in general, and a toxic culture in law in particular. I know that medicine has its own problems and that med students get it worse than young lawyers in lots of ways. For example, residents seem to have to deal with a lot more poor treatment than articling students do. 

60 hours is nothing to brag about (I'm surprised lawyers only work 60 hours/wk). 70 hours is the norm for a biomed PhD/postdoc. 80 hours is the norm for people in finance.

 

But the mistake here is to equate long hours with productivity. Hard work does not lead to success. Hard work with the right strategy leads to success. In fact, with the right strategy, you don't even need to work hard.

 

I sometimes feel shamed if I work long hours these days....

[makingfetchhappen]

Come work for me at Pearson Specter Litt, I guarantee you a good position with some of the brightest people I know.

We have this one guy who has a photographic memory and may have not actually gone to law school. We also have this other guy who's very anal about everything and likes causing trouble... but he's a goof in general. Our boss is a controlling psychotic hypocritical dick... but at least my secretary is awesome!

 

Lol offer accepted!

 

The whole photographic memory thing is really funny. It's pretty easy to remember the law. You don't really need to memorize things. You just read it once and you should remember! Also you're always coming across new things for at least the first 15 years of so. I guess they needed some way to make him seem like a genius and that's the best they could come up with!

[makingfetchhappen]

60 hours is nothing to brag about (I'm surprised lawyers only work 60 hours/wk). 70 hours is the norm for a biomed PhD/postdoc. 80 hours is the norm for people in finance.

 

But the mistake here is to equate long hours with productivity. Hard work does not lead to success. Hard work with the right strategy leads to success. In fact, with the right strategy, you don't even need to work hard.

 

I sometimes feel shamed if I work long hours these days....

They weren't bragging about how long their hours were, they were bragging about how short they were.

 

60 minimum is a bit I think. Assuming you break for an hour a day, you would be in the office from 8 am to 10 pm Mon to Thurs, and 8 to 6 on Fridays. I think that's a pretty long week. Especially for 20 years or more.

 

Agreed though that it's for sure not necessarily productive to work long hours. It depends what kind of work you are doing.

[武田信玄]

They weren't bragging about how long their hours were, they were bragging about how short they were.

60 minimum is a bit I think. Assuming you break for an hour a day, you would be in the office from 8 am to 10 pm Mon to Thurs, and 8 to 6 on Fridays. I think that's a pretty long week. Especially for 20 years or more.

Agreed though that it's for sure not necessarily productive to work long hours. It depends what kind of work you are doing.

At least u guys got paid well in the end. What does a 10 year postdoc have to show for? A divorce paper plus a one bedroom apartment whereas the slaveowner, cough, I mean the PI is taking his sweet ass vacation in Hawaii after he calls you a failure. Now that's some real human greed.