Lately, I have been grappling with a sense of entitlement.  I deserve this, I should get that, why does she get one and I don’t?  I would like to think this is new for me, but I am not so sure.  Neither am I proud of it, but I bet I am not the only law school graduate who’s found the start of my career a little anticlimactic.

I mention this because somehow it got into my head that I deserved, DEserved!!!, a nice vacation this year.  From some angles, there might be truth to that.  I never went anywhere fancy for spring break and I didn’t go on a six-month bender after I took the bar.  The last time I had an enjoyable vacation might have been 2004.  (Oahu and Kauai – and I totally recommend both.)

From other angles, however, I don’t really need a nice vacation.  I’ve had plenty of lovely weekends (Denver, Killington, Cape Cod, Sea Isle, and Houston), and I lived in San Diego, where everyday is a vacation.  Moreover, I have loans from here to eternity, I am earning substantially less than I was in BigLaw, and someday I would like to buy a house.  (And yes, for those of you who are wondering, somewhere in there I will have some kind of wedding.)  With these financial pressures, it is much harder for me to justify a vacation allowance in my budget.

Justify it I did, however, and I am glad about it.  At the moment, I am sitting in a hotel suite in Puerto Rico and contemplating whether I want to go to the pool or to the beach this afternoon.  (It is impossible not to be glad about that.)  In the grander scheme of things, however, I am glad I am here because it punctuates what has been, and might continue to be, a challenging year.  I have been granted a respite – a reset – so I can be ready for the challenges ahead.

Earlier, I wrote about feeling like a second-class citizen in my current capacity as a contract attorney.  Over the last several months, I’ve sometimes succeeded in convincing myself  it’s all in my head.  Sure, I have to get time sheets signed by a senior associate, but I have my own office and a steady paycheck.  That’s got to count for something.

Maybe not.  Today, I was reminded again that I am not a first-class citizen of MidLaw after all.  HR was going around to all the offices and asking people to give them “Fun Facts” for some kind of game they are organizing this Friday.  Attorneys, staff, and summer associates  – they’ve all been harassed to provide some sort of interesting tidbit from their lives.

Not I, however.  My fun fact was not requested.  So here it is for you instead: in 2009, I managed to land a terribly interesting job at the Dept. of the Treasury during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

That is fun.

So, I have a new job!  At least, I have an offer pending a security check by the FBI.  But the point is, I don’t need to keep looking for other jobs.  How exciting!  Here’s a brief outline of what my job is and how it went down:

My job: working in international trade at the Department of the Treasury.  Using my law degree by reviewing regulations, facilitating corporate transactions, and offering advice.

How it went down: the old boys’ network.  Seriously.  I emailed a white, male, graduate of an Ivy League institution and I found my job.  This is ironic because I am neither white nor male.  Of course, I didn’t contact this particular alumnus (we’ll call him Mr. Awesome) simply because he was white, male, and Ivied.  Rather, I contacted him because he was one of many alumni signed up for a networking program through my university and I was looking for anyone who would help.  Of the many people I emailed, Mr. Awesome was the most helpful.[FN1]  He told me about a vacancy at his office and he put my resume in front of the hiring director.  I had to pass through two rounds of interviews, but having him flag my application out of the hundreds of others is what really got me in the door.

And for that, I will be forever grateful.

—

FN1.  Incidentally, my law school network was not helpful at all.  It was very disappointing and almost upsetting.  I emailed the officers of the DC chapter of my law school alumni association (i.e., people who would expect to get networking emails), and all I got were very lukewarm responses.  They did tell me, though, about how I could help them by organizing more alumni events around town.  Nice.

Quick note, as it’s getting late…

I found a new job.  With health benefits.  And a retirement plan.  It’s even in the field that I wanted.

Holla!

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the last post, it’s that there’s plenty of advice to go around.

So here’s some more:

If you’re taking the California bar and you’re taking it on computer, take your laptop with you at lunch and upload your answers after the morning essays.  The proctor will tell you the bar examiners “recommend” you leave your laptop in the testing room, and most people do.  But I know of at least one applicant who left his computer in the test center, where there was no Internet, and then came back to a failed computer.  He immediately started handwriting the afternoon session, and he was able to finish that, but his essays from the morning…well, they’re in a better place now.  Had he uploaded his morning work during lunch, he wouldn’t have lost anything.  But he didn’t, so he received no credit for the morning and had to take the exam again in February. (Which he passed, by the way.)

But the point is, take your laptop with you during lunch.

The summer has begun, and that means only one thing: Bar/Bri.  As I have mentioned before, I am thankful everyday I do not have to do that again.  (At least, not unless I want to – and really, why would I want to?  But I digress.)  Taking the bar is a momentous event in a young attorney’s life – grueling, demanding, incessant.  Hundreds of thousands of law school tuition, three years of irrational law school exams, and who knows how many hours wasted away on facebook – it all comes down to the two or three days at the end of July when more than a few intellectual giants have met their match.  Some of my newly graduated friends have called me up and asked me for advice – they’re freaking out.

Here, then, is a compendium of what I have told them – some of it might even be helpful.

1.  Study.  Study hard.  Then stop.  There is a lot to be memorized, and the only way it will get done is if you put in the time.  That said, there is no way you’ll memorize everything – it simply is impossible.  Studying for the bar is not so much memorizing everything, but minimizing the possibility that you will encounter something you don’t know.  Of course, you want to minimize that possibility as much as possible, which is why you should be making flash cards and whipping them out when you have a spare moment.  But since you will not be able to memorize everything Bar/Bri throws at you, once you have reached your fill of studying for that day, put your Mini Review away and do something else.  Myself, I still managed to work out everyday – and even marginally train for a marathon – while I was studying.  Working out let me clear my head and perhaps even let what I’d studied that day to seep into my brain.  Without having that time away from the books, I doubt I would have had anything sink in.

On the other hand, some other things had to give.  Namely, I stopped cooking and doing laundry during the month of July.  Trader Joe became my personal chef and wash ‘n’ fold became my new best friend.  The Captain and I also “broke up” the last two weeks before the exam – we saw each other at Bar/Bri and that was it.  I had made up my schedule (run, study, eat/errands, study, eat, free time, sleep), and I stuck to it.

2.  Once you get closer to the exam, make a schedule and stick to it.  The rule of thumb when I was studying was that July 4 was when the s*&t went down, so I made a calendar for the last two weeks leading up to the exam, with each morning and afternoon allotted to a certain subject area.  Torts MBE in the morning, Con Law essay in the afternoon, etc.  The toughest part here was letting go of Torts when it was time to move on to Con Law because I would have unanswered questions.  No matter.  No matter how long I spent on Torts I always would have questions, and then I’d never get going on Con Law.  Having to rip yourself away from whatever you are studying is why it is imperative to utilize your allotted time as thoroughly and efficiently as you can.  Set a timer if you have to – that’s what I did.  It was much less tempting to cruise on over to jcrew.com when I saw my kitchen timer ticking down the seconds.

3.  The Bar/Bri paced schedule is helpful at the beginning.  I stuck to it for the most part except for the last several weeks before the exam when I made my own schedule.  Since I had followed the Bar/Bri schedule so well in the beginning, though, I had learned enough and felt confident enough to design my own plan.  The point is, there are many ways to pass a bar.  Bar/Bri had its schedule and I had mine, which borrowed heavily from Bar/Bri’s.  Whatever you choose to do, make sure you are covering as much as you can.  This is where honesty and self-awareness help.  If you can, at the end of the day, say that you have put in a solid day’s effort and wasted little time, then it is time to close the books and raise a pint.   If you cannot, however, then no beer for you until you can.

Is a lot different when shopping for three, two of which are big, adult males.  Why, yes, I will take that family pack of chicken thighs which used to horrify me by its size. And yes, why don’t I buy three packages of pasta? Gone are the days of the shopping basket; I now rock a grocery cart.  The Captain teased me about buying “family packs” when I came home, so I retorted, “Well, what else do you call it?  It’s you, me, and the Genius.  We’re a family.”

I didn’t expect to be thinking in family terms when I moved in, so I’m often surprised by how new – and yet utterly familiar – “family” life can be.  The Genius isn’t my brother, technically, but I love him and want to take care of him nonetheless.

Bring on the chicken thighs.

…men perspire, ladies glow.

Unless you are the Snappy Dish.  The Snappy Dish does not glow or perspire – she sweats profusely.  Lately this has become a problem.  I run almost everyday, and in the DC humidity I’ve found that I’m often still sweating after my shower.  This makes make-up a rather frustrating endeavor.  I wash my face, apply sunscreen, and watch my cheeks get shiny all over again.  It’s my version of Sisyphean woe.  Especially when my skin decides to break out on the day of an important interview.

Thank God for Shiseido.

(Psst, this is when you recommend ways of dealing with the humidity.  Savvy make-up tricks, special cuts of fabric – bring it.)

DC is definitely a company town – everyone’s in government, and everyone’s a lawyer.  Never was this clearer to me than when I recently volunteered to teach Sunday school and was politely declined.  Turns out that the church where I worship requires anyone working with the children to be either a long-term member or at least familiar to the congregation for a certain amount of time.  Given that I have just moved to town – and that I am still a member of my home church – I satisfy neither of these criteria.  Thus, I was rejected, even though I have been teaching Sunday school off and on [FN1] for fifteen years.

The children will just have to wait.

——-

FN1.  Okay, more off than on, but whatever.

Last week I posted about how embarrassed I was about losing my job.

This week, I am no longer embarrassed.  At least, not as much.  This week, I am amazed.

Three classmates of mine – each smarter than the last – have been laid off from three different brand-name firms in the last several weeks.  Before, I had a needling feeling that somehow, if I had just tried harder or studied longer, I would have kept my job.  Even though I knew that made no sense, I harbored the feeling nonetheless.  After hearing about these three classmates in particular, however, I have finally accepted that this is much bigger than me.  These three ladies all were rock stars in their own right – and I know they worked hard at their jobs and cared deeply about their work.  That they could have been let go is just stunning.

I have moved from embarrassment to sheer amazement.  This is just too much.