Help: FT lawyer having a horrible time (long...)

[lemur]

All advice on how to sort my working world out would be gratefully received... here is the thing:

I have a 9.5 month DD, in FT nursery care, a job in the City as a FT lawyer in private practice and two male partner bosses who just don't seem to realise the pressure that the above combination creates. It is Saturday night and I have just had huge row with monster of boss because I have to be in meetings tomorrow (Sunday, yes, I know it is the weekend) and I physically cannot be there as have to look after DD. DP cannot look after DD as he has football match to play(and does not want to be dictated to by my bosses) I have no handy relatives nearby who can look after DD and cannot leave DD with a friend as the meeting could go on indefinitely (i.e until Monday...).

And why am I even worrying about that level of detail, when the point is that the monster boss has, beyond saying "well you are the breadwinner so DP should sacrifice what he is doing" is also making me contact all my childless colleagues in a grovelling fashion to ask them to go to the meetings tomorrow, to punish me.

I am a lawyer and I know that somewhere in all of the S**T that is currently part of my working world, there is something breaching some of my employment rights, but I am not an employment lawyer. DP is away all next weekend and I am supposed to be working then too. I feel like just not bothering to go into work ever again.

DD had Chicken Pox just before Christmas, I had to be home with her for 7 working days and the matter ended up being referred to HR and me having to take unpaid leave because I came into work one day while DP looked after DD and so lost my right to any more emergency leave for the rest of the time DD was contagious (as was not an emergency as I knew she had CP!!!). This gives you a flavour of the way it works at the firm I work at.

I have only been back at work since the end of September 2006 and the gruelling routine of half an hour each way walk to nursery and then to work plus the working on work from 8pm until midnight plus the manipulative bosses (who had/have wives at home to look after kids) being totally unreasonable plus the fact my mum died a month before DD was born and I miss her all the time = I am somewhat losing the plot. That is a bit of an understatement.

So I guess the question is, do I just accept that you cannot do it all and find new, normal, job doing something that will never mean I have to work after 5.30 or weekends, or try and win against forces of chauvinism in the City of chauvinists?

Ideas welcome. Thank you.

Hopefully Lemur is now asleep! Lemur - does your firm give days off when you work all night?
LOL at the way this thread has gone - I am really looking forward to the commute when I go back to work so that I can catch up on my reading or sit and daydream! Not looking forward to the smell of the tube so much, but at least it is winter and I am not pregnant, so it shouldn't be too bad...

dros, she's at BPP so unlikely. She wants to be able to keep her horse, buy a flat and a better car so I think that is driving her choice of career but I really don't mind at all. Second daughter isn't sure but she's fairly ambitious too. I don't mind. When my sister joined a cult I remember discussions with my father and I was saying going to work 9 - 5 is as much a cult, conditioning as what she was doing. What is important is that they understand the long term consequences of their actions.

I was asked about well paid work and in whose reach. Hard to know. I am nothing like as clever as many lawyers but since I was very little there have been certain things I wanted to do and I have always wanted to work very hard. It's that saying - the harder I work the luckier I get....... My privilege I suppose was being born reasonably clever and I don't look too bad either. That's genes. I think we are 50% genes and 50% environment. Second advantage was my parents psychological skills in bringing us up - father psychiatrist, mother very good infant teacher . Some of it is choice. I remember talking to my parents when I was about 12 about which jobs meant I could buy an island for example and sitting down with my little chart (I thought you could save 100% of your gross income... very sweet...) working it all out. I also wanted a lot of children and to be able to afford that. Obviously there is also huge privilege. I was never beaten. The house was warm. There was space to study. We didn't have holidays for many years so we could go to private schools. The contrast with my sibilings who had the same upbringing is interesting too. I would put a lot down to the fact I am the oldest child actually.

I don't boast at all. I'm divorced. I don't have a close loving relationship with anyone. In the last 3 years there's been the divorce, my mother's death, father's problems. I think the problems people have are probably much the same the world over whatever they earn. I think it's fun to mention the island and since I was 22 and working full time with a baby I have deliberately made a point of mentioning it so other people can see yes you can work and have small children. I don't think that's boasting. It has always just been trying to be an example.

Visits to the island... it's near the Equator so we can't just pop over for a quick mumsnet visit. Last February I found a huge snake there but it was asleep. We didn't see it in August. The local agent said we should "take it out" but I don't want at the moment to do anything that destroys the environmental balance.

What is BPP?

I have found this thread very interesting. I am a City lawyer and work 2 days a week so I thought I would share my experience.

Hello ControlFreaky - I remember you were very helpful when I was having my wobble last year. Thank you! Glad you are enjoying your sabbatical.

I am very grateful to my firm for being so flexible. Obviously as it is City work there are days I work on my days off, work till 4 in the morning or work evenings and weekends. However, in generally, they have made sure that the work I do can fit into the hours I want and I can't fault them.

However, as the grass is always greener, it does have disadvantages. I sometimes look at the work my colleagues (and husband) are doing or get inspired by a talk and think how exciting it can be if you commit to it fully. The work I do is interesting and challenging but as it has to fit (nearly) into 2 days a week, it is inevitably not the same. I also can't help feeling it is career suicide!

Lemur, sorry you are having such a difficult time. I think part time work is probably best for me (although there are very few days when I do not challenge that) but it is a very personal choice. Before you apply to work flexibly, it is worth having a really good think about what you really like about the work and see which elements could realistically survive if you don't work full time. It is a service industry and clients and employers pay well for 24/7 capacity.

Part time work is the best and worst of both worlds. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to try it. I know my husband would struggle to get it. However, with choice comes guilt and I have never been so confused in my life!

It is refreshing to hear people who feel they have the right balance. I'm not sure I've got it right yet. Good luck!

You have to find what works for you. I think part time work means you get lumbered with boring stuff at home as your other half thinkgs you have all this free time and yet at work you often edn up doing almost full time anyway yet you're off that track to make £500k - £1m a year or whatever. But I suppose some parents like it because it means you've not irrevocably given up work and there are parents who once the children are at school go back full time and those few years off haven't had a disastrous effect which 10 years with no work at al might have.

D - BPP? just a law school - bpp.com

I see, unlikly to want to be a nurse then.

Isn't there a lady who was a nurse who set up her own nursing agency and made a fortune hiring nurses to the NHS? It can be lucrative. I am not sure why anyone would prefer to be a nurse and not a doctor actually unless their A level results would preclude them from being a doctor of course.

'I am not sure why anyone would prefer to be a nurse and not a doctor actually unless their A level results would preclude them from being a doctor of course.' - this surely has to be the quote of the century?!

I can't imagine DS's doctors, nice as they are, being able to/having time to do what all the nursing staff do for DS every time he goes in. Priceless.

That doesn't answer my point. Surely surgery, psychiatry or whatever is much more fun than nursing care. Obviously we need nurses. I wasn't saying otherwise but why would my daughters or sons for example choose that over nursing?

..choose nursing over those.. obviously...

Maybe your kids will all flee to the health and social care sector and take up lowly positions therein as an act of teenage rebellion, Xenia?

This thread has made me think a lot and there are some great posts. I enjoyed tigermoth's contributions particularly. I hope you will find a way to feel happier about your work-life balance, lemur.

I must say one thing this thread has really highlighted for me is quite embarrassing. I've realised that I am completely ignorant about what all you city lawyer types actually do... Why do you need to be at work all the time anyway? Anyone want to tell me in words of one syllable (ish) what you do and why it matters?

controlfreaky.... (a disaffected lawyer) sits back and awaits replies with interest.....

Scummy, a lot of the lawyers who've been posting on this thread are posting about big corporate transactions.

A good example would be one company making a takeover bid for another one.

Transactions like that are regarded as highly time-critical, partly because a company has announced its intention to bid, the Takeover Code sets out a strict timetable about what has to be done in what timeframe, and partly because once a target is "in play", then it is open season for other bidders - perhaps competitors of the original bidder - to pile in to make their own bids for the company.

Most types of transaction require reams of documentation, the more so as various European directives have kicked in, and negotiating the deals can be very intensive and there is an expectation that all involved will stay as long as is required, nights, weekends, holidays, you name it.

It is an adrenalin rush, for sure, but I decided after 4 years of this that it was not for me and I preferred something more cerebral and more leisurely.

Hope that gives a bit of an insight.

Oh, and the reason it "matters", if you believe in all this bollocks, is because it makes money. Lots of money.

Thanks dino. So basically it's a bit like ebay with paperwork?

Scummy!

Wine over keyboard moment here

Depends on the work and it varies hugely. Say a big company like M&S was going out of business, losing money and thousands of people are going to lose their jobs, people come in to try to save it, liquidators etc and they find a buyer and it's 3pm on a Friday and a lot of legal work has to be done on it by say 2pm on the Momnday or else the buyer will pull out so you get some people who know about selling shops who do property things, you get lawyers who can transfer the employment contracts over, you get lawyers who can look at the business contracts and others who will write the piece of paper which says we sell these assets to this buyer. The buyer sends the seller's lawyers their documents - these will take many hours to write and if you get it wrong you the lawyer or your firm gets sued for millions of pounds etc... it's risky business... anyway you do the drafts and the other lawyers look at them and improve them say to make sure they get the right money and when and takes a good few hours to look at (in reality more like over several week - I was just trying to pick a really urgent example) and then everyone decides as it's urgent instead of just emailing papers around some of those lawyers will sit in a room with the buyer and seller and go through page by page what they want negotiate really, get the best deal and then once it's agreed the papers are signed. Sometimes those meetings take many hours.

Or you might get someone who is about to kill a child or remove it from the UK or who has stolen business secrets of another company. You have 5 hours to get papers together to prove your case and rush off to court. You can even get a judge out of bed at 2am if it's sufficiently urgent and get an order to stop the wrong thing happening that otherwise would happen. I am sure other people can describe this process better than I have. All these areas are really interesting.

My children? We'll see. As I think I said below one is studying law and applying for jobs now. The others don't know yet. One of the nice things about having 5 chidren is the variety. Tehre's no one little emperor only child like in family with 10 members of the family all putting all their hopes into that one that has to be the genius success of the family etc... you can leave them more to get on with things as they choose. I would be disappointed if one of them didn't have children and I would be sad if they picked work they don't enjoy. I also think most people change jobs anyway and no decision is irrevocable.

Yes . More paperwork than you could shake a stick at.

Ah, Dinosaur's description better than mine - posted whilst I was doing mine. It also partly needs an element of presenteeism. If you're there you get the work. If you're not the client calls another firm who does have someone there at 7pm to take the call although you can be elsewhere and also there to some extent now. I took a call on a ski lift in December.. bit cold on my fingers and hard to take notes.

xenia - ive said this before. You have a very blinkered view of what is and is not important generally. Obviously you are passionate about whatever it is you do to earn mega bucks but that said its not necessarily important and life changing is it? If everyone were to be in the same profession then surely you would have to work even harder to be successful. Sit back and think of the people you rely on. Do you have a cleaner? what about the midwives/doctors who delivered all your children and looked after you inh the hospital, the catering staff there who made sure you were fed properly, the laundry people who made sure your bed was fresh. The people who built your house, who does your garden, works in the supermarket where you do your shopping,

Sheesh you are so up your own arse its frightening

hi there jampots!

hi

lol at working from a ski lift! Was it one of the button between the thighs ones?

Is everyone on here a lawyer?

there are a... few of us..... pray why do you ask?