All the cattle are standing like statues…
Lately, my world hasn’t responded to me in the usual way.
I decided to trade in my career for a job. So, I needed a job. Preferably something I could do by rote, that’s just interesting enough to keep me conscious during working hours. Hopefully, something that would pay enough to make it worth my time to dress myself and apply mascara and show up at the workplace. Cool people and part-time hours were high on the wish list, too (the better to pour my soul into my writing, rather than have it forcibly sucked out of me).
Tragically, I have more experience in legal assisting than any self-respecting holder of a baccalaureate degree ought to. No less tragic is the sad fact that it’s about the only job I’m qualified to do that would pay a half-decent salary. (Okay, it’s about the only job I’m legally qualified to do… etc.)
However, I’ve been out of that world for six years. Not so marketable. I should know, having spent those six years as a headhunter.
So, my hopes were not high when I registered with the legal placement agency, took their little typing test and jumped through their little secretarial hoops. They called my cell shortly after I left their office. They’d faxed my resume to a handful of law firms and two of them already wanted to interview me. Um… what?
I had six interviews over the next two days. Everyone who interviewed me wanted to hire me. Just… baffling.
There was one full-time (very full-time) paralegal gig that sounded juicy. The people were awesome, the work was fascinating, the money and potential were great. I left there really jazzed about it… ‘til I realized it wasn’t a job. It was a career. Not what I was looking for right now.
There are practically NO part-time legal assistant jobs in this town. The few that exist don’t pay nearly enough to cover my bills, but a 40-hour job wouldn’t give me enough time to write. Sigh…
I mentally created the perfect part-time gig…
And then I got it.
8:30am - 1pm, Monday - Friday. They’re paying me about twice what the job is worth. (The way-cool attorney asked what I wanted. I highballed. He said okay. Just… baffling.)
I start tomorrow. I’m not dreading it. Hope I can say the same about Tuesday.
More on the “everything’s going my way” theme, whenever I get around to recapping the Austin Film Festival & Screenwriters’ Conference, from which I’m still recovering…
I decided to trade in my career for a job. So, I needed a job. Preferably something I could do by rote, that’s just interesting enough to keep me conscious during working hours. Hopefully, something that would pay enough to make it worth my time to dress myself and apply mascara and show up at the workplace. Cool people and part-time hours were high on the wish list, too (the better to pour my soul into my writing, rather than have it forcibly sucked out of me).
Tragically, I have more experience in legal assisting than any self-respecting holder of a baccalaureate degree ought to. No less tragic is the sad fact that it’s about the only job I’m qualified to do that would pay a half-decent salary. (Okay, it’s about the only job I’m legally qualified to do… etc.)
However, I’ve been out of that world for six years. Not so marketable. I should know, having spent those six years as a headhunter.
So, my hopes were not high when I registered with the legal placement agency, took their little typing test and jumped through their little secretarial hoops. They called my cell shortly after I left their office. They’d faxed my resume to a handful of law firms and two of them already wanted to interview me. Um… what?
I had six interviews over the next two days. Everyone who interviewed me wanted to hire me. Just… baffling.
There was one full-time (very full-time) paralegal gig that sounded juicy. The people were awesome, the work was fascinating, the money and potential were great. I left there really jazzed about it… ‘til I realized it wasn’t a job. It was a career. Not what I was looking for right now.
There are practically NO part-time legal assistant jobs in this town. The few that exist don’t pay nearly enough to cover my bills, but a 40-hour job wouldn’t give me enough time to write. Sigh…
I mentally created the perfect part-time gig…
And then I got it.
8:30am - 1pm, Monday - Friday. They’re paying me about twice what the job is worth. (The way-cool attorney asked what I wanted. I highballed. He said okay. Just… baffling.)
I start tomorrow. I’m not dreading it. Hope I can say the same about Tuesday.
More on the “everything’s going my way” theme, whenever I get around to recapping the Austin Film Festival & Screenwriters’ Conference, from which I’m still recovering…
posted by Julie O'Hora at 6:27 PM
4 Comments:
I'm not (yet) comfortable with blogging my twisted existence, but that doesn't mean I don't get a chuckle when someone else manages to do the deed well.
Come that day when the toasts are raised to your leaving the 9-5 world forever, I hope I get to be in the front half of the line of folks lifting a glass.
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B
Isn't it nice to realize that sometimes you're even more valued than you ever suspected?
Embrace it :-)
I am quite sure I'd have the inverse response were I to leave the 9-5. I'm not half as valuable as I make everyone think. Now if I can turn that bs into some writing like our gracious host I might have something going for me. Which would be nice.
ted
Congrats. Beware that part time job doesn't become a full time job craftily DISGUISED as a part time job.
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