Career Commiserations

Last night I had dinner with an attorney from the Boston office who is having a baby in 6 weeks or so. My main goal with going out to dinner with her was to pick her brain on how she told the firm she was pregnant and what her plans are post-maternity leave.

No, I don't have any news. I like to conduct a lot of research before leaping into something.

As far as the firm goes, she told me what I already knew. We work with a lot of family-oriented people who were thrilled for her when she announced she was expecting. They're even throwing a little baby shower for her in a couple of weeks. She's not exactly sure how it's all going to work when she comes back from maternity leave, but has told them she wants to come back, probably at a bit of reduced time, and that they seem willing to work with her.

My situation in Providence is a bit difference since I'm one of two attorneys in this office, but knowing my boss, and how into his kids he is, I figure we can work something out whenever the time comes.

However, the best part of the evening for me was when she and I started talking about how the expectations for our work had changed recently. She and I clerked at the firm together and graduated at the same time. She started working there immediately after the Bar, while I took my more circuitous path down to DC, through contract attorneying and a couple part-time gigs, finally landing at the Providence office of the firm that had originally trained me.

Talking to her made me feel so much better about some career stumbling blocks I have hit recently, culminating in a VERY BAD DAY right before we left for Hawaii. Which, you know, great, let's leave the boss with a bad impression while I take off for 2 weeks.

My main problem is, I am still inexperienced. There is a steep learning curve to this job. At some point (like now), your boss stops giving you tasks to complete and actually starts asking for your input and expecting you to think about the whole picture, rather than just one task. My Boston friend and I have both felt this change recently and have both felt a little intimidated by it. Or a lot intimidated by it, depending on the day.

The thing is, I don't want to give clients the wrong answer. The key is to either figure out the answer based on past experiences, or to find a way to sound confident while actually asking for a little time to do some research and figure it out.

When I got back from Hawaii, I made a deal with myself that I would work on sounding confident and expressing my opinion. Over the last several months, I've discovered that my gut instinct on something often turns out to be the right answer. But when I wait for my boss to say it and then I lamely say, "That's what I was thinking...", that just sounds, well, lame. So I've tried to be more assertive and tried to be better about looking at the whole picture in a situation, even if I am just working on one piece of the puzzle.

I think it's made a difference. The other day, my boss introduced me as his "colleague" and while I'm probably reading too much into that, I do think he's been more pleased with my work lately.

Talking about it with my Boston friend and realizing I'm not alone in this feeling, has helped so much. Frankly, it makes me feel better about this choice I made 8 years ago to go to law school and be an attorney.