Slice of Life

Get Busy Livin'

I'm starting to feel not so good about having to submit my resignation here at work, perhaps as early as tomorrow.  Oh by the way, I ended up getting that job in Charlotte and start at the end of next month.  Groovy.  I just feel badly.  I can't put my finger on it, but it's like I have this big lie I am carrying around that no one knows about.  And the other thing is that I've been working here just under 10 months.  Talk about jumping ship.  I've kicked some major ass here in 10 months and looking at the body of work I've developed can safely say that this position has never been more active and accomplished more in any other 10 month period in the history of this agency.  As I said during a meeting yesterday, apparently too bluntly for some, "it's not an opinion or embellishment - just go open the file cabinets and look for yourselves."  Zzzzzzzzing!

I should be excited and nervous about the new adventure that awaits down south, but I feel like a phony here instead.  I have to keep reminding myself:  look out for yourself.  Do what's best for you.  At the end of the day, does my employer really give a shit about me?  Nope.  Could my position be cut faster than the blink of an eye if budgetary constraints mandated such action?  No doubt.  What can I do.  I'd be a fool to turn down the job, pine away here for another year or two only to bitch and gripe about how I'm not really challenged at this job and how cold the winters are and what a complete pain in the ass the people in my condo association are to deal with.  The grass isn't always greener on the other side, but it's a hell of a lot wamer in Charlotte.

I'm going to be challenged in my new job probably like I've never been challenged before.  It's pretty new.  I'm going to work harder than I ever will have worked before.  Lots of travel and tons of public speaking.  Quite literally I will be a tree hugger, and it's time to practice what I preach.  If I want to be challenged in my work and join a cause and do even more than I'm doing in the name of environmental protection, it's time to start taping cardboard boxes together and hop on I-95 South and start a new adventure.  I don't want to be here 10 years from now wishing I would have jumped on the opportunity to do something new and exciting.  I'm 30, not 80.  Home may definitely be where the heart is, and I am a proud New Englander and would not want it any other way, but it's a big friggin' world out there that is waiting to be explored and enjoyed.  And the last time I checked, I still haven't received my medal for enduring -20 below temperatures and 3 hours of daylight for the situation we refer to as winter in these parts.  I want to go for a run and wash my car in December, not call on a search team to find my ballsack.

My favorite line from The Shawshank Redemption is towards the end of the movie when Red decides to skip a check in with his parole officer and instead travel across the northern hemisphere to meet up with his Andy Dufresne:  Get busy livin', or get busy dyin':  that's goddamn right.

Time to dust off the jean shorts and pick a favorite NASCAR driver.  Not sure if there is room for a gun rack and confederate flag in the back of my Civic, but I'll look into it.  This is gonna be great.

To Each His Own

Personally, I think this job could be pretty cool.  Implementing environmental policies and guidelines, doing risk management shit, and doing all of this in the heart of Baghdad?  I actually think it could be a cool job, others disagree.  And to be working for "the global engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation"?  Hey man, billions of U.S. tax dollars are going to these people.  I don't see working for them as adding to the further bilking of American taxpayers, just simply getting back what was mine in the first place.  I'm seriously 50/50 on throwing my name into the hat, just for shits and giggles.  I have to believe the benefits are solid, too, despite the ever-present risk of kidnapping and beheading.  The weather is pretty warm.  Plenty of spots to practice my sand wedge.  The U.S. Dollar has to be pretty strong in comparison to the Iraqi whatever-they're-using-for-cash.

Can you imagine.  Me.  Baghdad.  Risk Manager for a Halliburton subsidiary.  "Hey, uh, Big Steve, I think you need to fill out an Incident Report for that chemical spill you had over at Dock 3 this afternoon, and it may mean you will have to take a day of unpaid leave for the infraction, um okay?"

"Fuck you."

"Okay then, keep up the good work."

First Day Highlights

• Wish there was video of me looking at my alarm clock last night before bed, giggling, not having the first clue how to set that fucking thing.  6:45 a.m.  Ooof.
• Naturally my first day of work coincides with the first fucking snow storm of the year smack dab in the middle of my commute (oh by the way, I commute now, not an issue for me).  Fifty minutes on the dot from door-to-door, which is amazing considering the conditions.  And I was going 40 MPH on some stretches of the interstate.  Probably will be in the neighborhood of 35 minutes when conditions are clear.  Solid.
• Holy shit is it dark in the morning.  How do people see?
• The person I am replacing left a huge ficus plant in the office I now call mine.  Thing is dry as a bone.  Water and some TLC should do the trick.
• The group of people I work with are so incredibly cool, and I have always felt that this is half the battle when it comes to having a job you enjoy.  And I can tell I am going to love the actual work itself.
• My stomach absolutely roared this morning at about 9:30 a.m. in the middle of a meeting.  Roared.  See, I had been up for about 4 hours at that point (wide awake WAY before the alarm was set to go off) and based on my routine for the past 7 months, my body thought it was lunch time.
• The staff was psyched to see me.  Appeared enthusiastic about me taking the job.
• I have a LOT to learn about the specific area of the law I am focusing on now.  A LOT.  When I spoke with one of my superiors before leaving he told me not to worry about knowing everything too quickly; that he has been working with this particular law for 25 years and still doesn't understand everthing about it.  Sweet.  Because I don't know shit.
• There is a daily coffee and donut cart that swings by my office around 9:00 a.m.  Didn't notice a bottle of Baileys on it.
• I jammed out to Natalie Merchant on my drive down to work.
• Around 2:00 p.m. my eyes started watering so bad because I was friggin' fried.  And naturally right after lunch there was this hour-long powerpoint presentation in a room that was pitch black.  As soon as those lights went off I was - sssst.  Out.
• I am psyched.  I am really, really psyched.

Start Date

Well boys and girls, I finally landed a job.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's something I can't discuss in too great of detail and chances are I won't be blogging about it very much despite the oodles and oodles of blogable shit I'm going to see on a daily basis, much of it both mind-bogglingly scary and funny at the same time.  I'll do my best to talk about it as much as I can without revealing my true identity.

It was a crazy week of events in terms of the speed with which this all happened.  Last Tuesday I had my interview with about 6 people from the office, all of them incredibly cool.  I started getting that feeling right away, as soon as I met the head of the department.  Outgoing, friendly, great handshake for a lady, all of the attributes you would want from a boss.  So I'm thinking, okay, this could be really promising.  Then the "panel" comes in one by one, and you never know what they are going to be like from a simple handshake and greeting.  A couple of months ago I was interviewing for this job and I noticed one guy on this panel started dozing off, right in the middle of my interview.  Boy did that ever make me feel good about my prospects of landing that job.  Actually that was pretty funny because as soon as I noticed this dildo catching some z's, instead of saying, "hey, asshole, wake up," what I did was:  1) waive the white flag and gave up on any hopes of working there and 2) looked that sleepy bastard right in the face and talked only to him as I answered questions.  These types of things really amuze me.  So anyway, point being, I wasn't sure if I was going to get stuck with Bob and Bob from Office Space, or some folks who were exponentially cooler than that.

Early on I knew things were going to go my way.  The second or third question was something to the effect of, "what do you do when you are faced with. . ."  And I doubt you'll find this anywhere in any type of books about interviewing tips or how to land the perfect job, but for one reason or another I ended my answer with, "Hey.  Sometimes you need to drop the proverbial hammer."

The proverbial hammer.  Classic.

Ninety-nine people out of one hundred would advise you to steer clear of saying something like that in a job interview.  I'm the one who would say go for it.  Talk how you talk (minus profanity).  Be yourself.  Say what you are feeling.  Show these people exactly what you're all about and leave them with a clear impression that you are going to be phenomenal to work with, someone who kicks ass when asses need to be kicked but who knows how to laugh and make others laugh when the time is right.  So after I talked about the proverbial hammer dropping instead of hearing the faint chirping of a field of crickets in the distance the guy who originally asked me the question shook his head and smiled and said, "yeah, that's a good answer."

Fuckin' A right, brother.  (Definitely don't say that, but you can quietly think it to yourself like I did, as I will probably elicit a pleasant, professional, nod of the head and smile.)

Of all my interviews, I was fielding the questions as eloquently as I ever had, making eye contact with everyone, cool as a cucumber.  At one point, and I can't remember how this came up, somebody said something like, "Well are you a Yankees fan or a Red Sox fan?  That's an important question in this office."  There was a reserved sort of chuckle or other form giddiness from everyone in there, and I sort of skirted the question and jokingly asked, "Isn't baseball season over?" to which someone said, "it's never over in this office."  Cool.  An office filled with people who are enthusiastic about sports.  You had me at hello.

I got the feeling as I left that they got a feel for who I am and what I'm all about.  A connection was made.  So suffice to say I got my hopes up for this job.  I am going to like who I work with and that is a huge piece of the puzzle.  But the job itself, which I wish I could dedicate an entire post to with as much specificity as possible, is unbelievably cool.  I am actually going to enjoy work.  A decent amount of travel invovled doing stuff that directly impacts and affects a ton of people, without question.  So I feel good about that, fulfilled.  The one-on-one relationships you cultivate in private practice can be very special and rewarding, but the key phrase here is "one-on-one."  The wake you ultimately create doesn't extend very far at all.  And of course you get the occasional jackass that is expecting a courtroom showdown for his or her case similar to that epic scene in A Few Good Men.  That isn't me anymore and I am psyched as ever to be saying "good riddance" to that aspect of practicing law.  Now I can be a good guy, a very good guy, for thousands of people.

I interviewed on Tuesday and on Wednesday I got an e-mail from my old boss saying that someone called to do a reference check on me and that he gave me a "ringing endorsement" for my candidacy for the job.  Blinders.  Things are looking up.  Then on Thursday someone from the office called me to say that they had received my thank you card (a word about sending hand-written thank you cards and how the New York Yankees may have gotten me this job later) and that they had one more interview to do but that they would contact me on Friday.  Okay, this really got me excited.  First of all, I already knew that they had more interviews to conduct after my interview on Tuesday, so I had to think that it was only a good sign that they were calling me again to essentially say hey, be by your phone Friday afternoon, we might be sealing the deal with you.  Then as expected, the call came in on Friday afternoon, officially beginning the next chapter in my life and bringing to a close the incredibly relaxing and rewarding sabbatical I have enjoyed for the last seven months.  Seven months.  Wow.

In the spirit of my last week of freedom, I leave you with a bit of laughter in the event that some of you are suffering from "a case of the Mondays."

Download missingwork.wav

Job Search Update: Worst Interview Answer

Interviewer:  "So what type of science courses did you take during your undergrad studies?"

Me (confused pause):  "Does Zoology count?"

Interviewer:  "Um, yeah."

Me:  "Zoology."

(uncomfortable silence)

Job Search Update: Best Interview Answer

Once upon a time I thought that I shouldn't write about my recent efforts to find gainful employment because I thought it would somehow jinx me or something idiotic like that.  That's just dumb.  So there is a lot of catching up to do with respect to what I've been doing with myself for the past six months.  Damn, six months.  Time flies.

I had an interview today that went pretty well.  I mean, they all seem like they go well.  I am a likeable guy and know, for the most part, when to inject humor into the interview, firm handshake, blah blah blah.  I'm getting good at interviewing (perhaps there is a full-time job where I can do that?) and the last half a dozen or so interviews I have gone in anticipating the usual canned interview questions I customarily am asked:  What are your biggest strengths/weaknesses?  What is a mistake you made and how did you learn from it?  What makes you interested in this job?  How big is your weiner?  Gotcha.  In any event, quite a few times I am asked what I have been doing with myself for the past few months other than sleeping in and playing with myself, and usually I have given some derivation of, "well I am the President of my condo association so that certainly has taken up a lot of my time and I actually started doing some landscaping for this guy I know and that has been a nice change of pace.  Such a beautiful summer this year in northern Vermont.  Lovely.  Great.  Wonderful."

But not today.

I'm not sure how or why I blurted this out when I was asked what have I been doing since I was laid off, but the answer was absolutely brilliant:

"I've been a homemaker."

Boom.  A homemaker.

Standing alone, one wouldn't think at first glance that my answer was all that big of a deal.  But here's the kicker:  my panel of interviewers was comprised of five people, four of them females.  Their smiles exploded in unison and lit up the room.  They don't need to know I'm not walking a dog a dozen times a day or taking kids to the playground but clearly the term "homemaker" as it applied to this male had a certain connotation in their heads, and from my side of the table, it was a favorable one.

So we'll see how it goes.  Early on I learned not to get my hopes up for jobs I apply for and I've maintained an even keel when it comes to interviewing and getting rejection letters and all that fun stuff.  I do regret limiting the geographical scope of my job search to the city (more like town) in which I currently live, because the job market here just blows unless you sell herb or play an instrument (boy do I ever regret giving up the trumpet) and I think if I had been more serious and dedicated early on to latching on to some headhunter or job recruiter in a real city I would have had more luck.  But the problem with being an attorney and moving to another state is this little ol' thing called the bar exam.  Each state is different regarding what practicing attorneys in different states have to do in order to get licensed in other states.  Some basically say "F you, you're taking the entire bar exam again," while others are much more practical and have some type of baseline requirement for having to practice law X amount of years and be in good standing.  What I have found is that in some of the states where I would consider relocating all I have to do is practice a certain amount of years here and remain in good standing (funny how you are either in "good standing" or "not in good standing," for some reason someone decided that "bad standing" did not have a good ring to it) and then basically just fill out an application and write a check and do what is commonly referred to as "waiving" in.  I think I am right around three years, which is the minimum in some states, but North Carolina, for instance, the requirement is four years.

"I'm a homemaker."

CLASSIC!

Glass Half Full

One could say that today I showed up for a job interview at the wrong time.  The very very very wrong time.

One could also say that today I arrived for a job interview 24 hours early.

Picking it Up a Notch

Time to get this job search deal moving, and moving quickly.  The good news about getting "let go" about a week ago (What a lame phrase that is:  "let go."  Like I have been holding someone's hand at work that past 3 1/2 years and he or she suddenly "let go" of me and whoops!  I'm no longer employed.  Reminds me of that classic line from American Beauty when Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is sitting at the dinner table the day his wife starts telling their daughter how he "lost" his job that day and Lester replies, "Lose it?  I didn't lose it.  It's not like, "Whoops!  Where'd my job go?"  I QUIT.  Someone pass me the asparagus.) is that I have an abundance of free time.  I've done some errands and chores that I have been putting off for months.  Ebay, god bless ya.

The bad news is that my time has not been very structured.  I know, Mr. Structure being unstructured?  It's true.  This weekend's fiasco with my brother and his buddy in town knocked my sleep cycle back on track in a big way, so I'm not longer doing the rise and shine at 4:00 a.m. to unload the dishwasher and watch The Big Lebowski.  ("You mean coitus?")  So I'm up around 7:30 or so, get my daily dose of Sportscenter, then it's down to the computer.  The problem, I think, is e-mail.  Fucking killing me.  I can't not respond to the messages I get.  But then when I actually look for jobs online, I wander.  (For chrissakes look at this.  I'm looking for jobs then decide, "hmmm, maybe I should blog about this?"  Somebitch.)

I need to come up with some sort of game plan, I just don't know what yet.  I'm thinking that I put together a list of things I want to do and things I'm qualified to do.  (hopefully there will be some sort of overlap.)  And then break things down in to job categories (human resources, um, hmmm, yeah) and then maybe location.  I think that is what I will try this week, do stuff on my own and then maybe next week get in touch with some headhunters.  If I could just hear from this job I interviewed a week or so ago and get the green light there, all my troubles will be solved.

High of 77 degrees today.  Softball this evening.  Ahhhh.  Unemployment.

Somebody Call Guiness

I think I burned 1,000,000 calories today.  That's a million.  Landscaping.  My dear goodness.  If my brain cells weren't screaming at me right now to get my ass in bed, I'd write about the experience.  (Very good, very positive, a breath of fresh air.  Not one single rock or pile of dirt gave me a bag of shit about a case I was working on for them.  It was uplifting.)

Then softball practice.  God I love softball.  Playing softball last summer changed my life.  I mean that.  I met a classy bunch of individuals who I consider my friends and it elevated my life here.  But I made a point to run my ass off this evening at practice.

Okay, my brain is shutting down.  I've scanned my desk 7 times now in the hopes of finding something meaningful to say.  But I will say this:  sleep.

If I'm not out and about here tomorrow it's because I'm in bed.  All day.

P.S.  Thank goodness for lazy rich people with big houses who don't know how to pick up a fucking rake and a trowel.  Without them, there would be far less landscapers in the world.

This is Not a Test

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and family, distinguished guests, loyal readers. . . may it please the court.

I just got let go.  (As in, "[Slice], the work hasn't been coming in and I can no longer afford to pay your salary, so I'm going to have to let you go.")

Don't panic.  I certainly am not.  I kind of knew something like this might happen for a few months now, and, to be honest, was sort of hoping that it would.  You have all seen me bitch and gripe from time to time about the legal profession and my job, so I am utterly relieved at this news.  In short, the work was simply not coming it at our small shop here.  As a result, my boss informed me that he could not longer afford to keep me here.  Today marks the beginning of the next chapter in my life, and it is cause for celebration and rejoicing.  No long faces or tears, no e-mails saying "hang in there kiddo" or "keep your chin up," ya got that?

It is time to gear up and start kicking life in the mother fucking ass.

So, with this being said, at the close of business today I will be officially hanging up my lawyer cap and diving into the world of unemployment, hopefully for not too long.  I have learned a lot and met some wonderful people (and a number of asshats).  But it is time to move on, and I have known this for quite some time.

Thank you all, you've been wonderful.

But my time here is up.