Description
How to Achieve a Positive Mental Attitude When Faced With a Situation You Find Disagreeable
[00:00:00] I'm a first year litigator who absolutely loved working from home. I am able to work long hours and still have time to have dinner with my significant other every night. My firm is bringing us back at the office on September and I feel entirely trapped. Not because I have zero desire to commute to the office and sit in uncomfortable clothing all day, but because I need to move. I've ridden out the pandemic in a massive two bedroom apartment that I absolutely in a lowercost of living city. I now have to give all that up and go pay a thousand dollars a month for a decently comparable one bedroom apartment to be within a 30 minute commute to my office. The cities are, of course, different jurisdictions so I can't even contemplate being a junior lateral for at least another year. It doesn't help that the case that eats up much of my time right now is out of another office, so I'll be moving and going to the office to just sit on zoom. I'm absolutely distraught and need someone to talk me off the ledge.
Okay. Yeah, this is perfectly the idea of having to work remotely is a big thing. And you're not the first person to bring up this issue in these calls. What I would say [00:01:00] is that you should really be careful about putting your needs before the needs of your employer.
I think that if the law firm is watching the office, those are reasons for that. They typically want people in the office because they feel there's more comradery. They feel that our work's done. They feel that there's more better exchange of information and kind of energy that comes up with that and certainly I understand wanting to be home and having dinner with a significant other every night, that makes perfect sense to me.
And, uncomfortable clothing. Perfectly feel the same way. I understand exactly what you're talking about, but at the same time, this is what the law firm requires. And frankly, I think if you do go back to the office, you're doing what I do a lot of times with work and things. You're putting your comfort first. Which like, I'm like that.
My house have these bean bags and I love comfort and I don't like commuting. And so I understand everything that you're saying. So it's not by any stretch of the imagination, a bad thing. But if you do want, I would say, especially, this is what [00:02:00] careers can be. There's no way you shouldn't be getting a face-to-face interaction with a walkway in a firm, because frankly you're thinking right now, like an employee.
What does it take to be an attorney?
Can be a good attorney. I would say that probably, 20 to 30% is work quality.
Maybe actually, amount is 30 to 40%, and the remaining which there be 50 to 70%.
70%, 30 to 50%, 30 to 50%.
And social means in-person relationships. In-person learning relationships, learning packs alliance, availability. If you're in the office, you have the opportunity to get all that stuff. And if you're not, you won't and people will say things to you in person that they would never say to you on zoom or on the call and the phone or via email and that's where the real learning comes. You learn all sorts of things when you're in person versus not.
My recommendation to [00:03:00] you is to actually be excited about going back into the office. If your priority is comfort, then there's nothing wrong with that. But there are jobs where you can actually make comfort a priority, which are things like, being a professor, where you can have more time to think and time at home or working for the government and so forth. Those are different professions, but at the same time, I do think you need to be in the office. And even though you're going to be in zoom, you're still going to be around other attorneys.
You're going to watch the mannerisms and can pick up a lot. And it's important and I hate to say it but it's something for you to think about.
