Jun. 14th, 2004

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Today was my first day at the new job. For anyone who has lost track, about a month ago I accepted an offer to practice patent law at a midsize firm in New York1 and gave notice at Lexis that I was leaving. My last day at Lexis was Friday, May 28.

I took two weeks off. The first week was spent in the Virgin Islands. Highlights included standing on a beach on Tortola at 3 AM, watching Jimmy Cliff perform live, and learning to sail a Hobie Cat one afternoon on St. Thomas. The first two days of the trip were spent sailing around the B.V.I., and the rest was spent in a two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath residence at the Ritz-Carlton Club on St. Thomas—for $100 a night.

And then I largely pissed away last week at home, spectacularly unmotivated to do anything.

Today was my first day at the firm, though, and I spent about six hours drinking from a fire hose called "orientation." Among other things, I learned that I must have a valid passport at all times in case the SEC starts an investigation I have to go to an overseas client's office on short notice and that I am required to account for nine hours a day on my time sheets. This is not to say I have to bill a minimum of nine hours every single day, merely that I must have nine hours worth of entries, counting billable work, internal paper shuffling, and goofing off at my desk. Still, it's a reminder of the world I have returned to—while I knew what it was like when I signed up for it, I can't say I was looking forward to this part.

The people seem nice, and I have my own office with large windows that don't face a brick wall. SSH is unblocked, which means I can get just about anything I want in or out from my computer desktop. There are some minor annoyances, of course: they don't seem to have a desk chair for me, so I'm currently using a stackable chair; my secretary is actually not on the same floor as I am and has yet to convince me she speaks any language other than Russian; I have a large, empty space on one wall that cries out for some kind of art, yet anything I'm likely to find meaningful is likely to violate the firm's sexual harassment policy. It's not a perfect world.

I'm in a fucked-up place in my head, in which it's difficult for me to get excited about things. If I weren't, I'd be really excited about this place, this opportunity that I was sure I'd never get, which could conceivably make me rich, famous, and powerful someday. For now, I'm just trying to stay focused on the job and to find a routine that works as well as possible.



1Which would be considered a fucking massive firm anywhere else in the world.

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