Hark! The Return of the Whiner!

Wow. It's been so long since I wrote here, or even checked this page. In between my last entry (which was really about Christmas 2008) and now, I moved back to New York, began my permanent assignment as an M&A lawyer, discovered (not to anyone's surprise) that I hated it, and became a little desperate to leave my job. I'm surprised none of the partners can smell the Eau d'Esperation that I liberally spritz on every morning, or sense the waves of negativity coming out of my office. Especially since I've gotten careless about who knows how unhappy I am.

The incoming class started orientation last week and will be seated in their first rotations sometime this coming week, so I guess I'm a third year associate now at a big international law firm in their New York office. Since I started, one of my entering classmates was let go because she didn't pass the bar, one left to go get an LLM, three got laid off, and two left voluntarily this year for something Other. The latest one to leave skipped out of here at the end of last month with no plans in sight, just a smile and farewell. I expressed my envy of her, and she said, "Join me!"

It is just that easy... and just that hard. I always planned to leave around this time, and if it were just me, maybe I'd go to grad school, or take a 9-5 job to pay the bills while I tried actually writing some of the shit I've been thinking of writing for years. But while I don't have children of my own, I do have an aging aunt with Alzheimer's who will probably outlive my uncle, two parents without retirement funds, a brother with financial woes, and a sense of family obligation. No one is pushing me to stay in this job to the detriment of my happiness or health. It's just me, and my personal fears about not being able to be there if someone needs me.

Corporate lawyers, as my friend at work says, are like abuse victims. You work outrageous, unreasonable, crushing hours on a deal, swearing all the while that this is the last straw, you're going to quit, you need a new job, you need to get your priorities in order. And then the deal ends, and there's a lull, and you get a couple weekends off in a row, and you go on a nice vacation, and you collect your paycheck, and you think, "Ah well. It's not SO bad most of the time." And then the cycle starts again.

Life isn't all bad. The good parts are very good. But man oh man, do I need a new job.