vicarz | (no subject)

Fuck. Me.
That's not a request, it's a comment on how I feel - the fake bravado of someone defeated but who has little choice but to laugh and continue plodding on. Today's hearing was a horrific disaster, to my utter shock. From all the research I performed and was provided my case was a slam dunk, but the other side was able to pull tons of documented instances whch I was promised had not and could not occur, but that was ok. I beat down most of that on cross. What I didn't count on was my key witness completely changing their story on the stand from what they said to me yesterday. Fuck. Me. Coz that person just did.

Left the hearing, talked briefly with my TA to confirm that yes, she screwed up that bad, yes we might need change our tactic and fast, and YES she said something entirely different to both of us yesterday.

In the office I return to the battle of the family of cases I loathe, and the new management member who seems to be on a mission against our branch. We were just told there is a proposal to make us turn in multi-page reports / pretrial briefs on every case we do...more work.

It's times like this I wish I hadn't purchased this 2nd home. I need this fucking job, but with my 2nd arbitration smelling of a not-win (aka 0/2) and war forming in the office, I miss the security I felt so many months ago. If I was in the old place this job wouldn't matter as much, but as it is I can't miss a lot of paychecks.

I technically could go out and drink tonight, but while I'm a fan of the bottle I don't feel like i have time. Tomorrow I'm leaving at 5am to catch my 7am flight. I start up with meetings on this case and the others Thur AM, with meetings with our enemies...I mean upper management...on Fri. I don't mind working, but I feel like more than half the time I'm just trying not to be fired, not to get in trouble - never trying to excel.

Wish I had something to look forward to. I have 3-4 major areas of life, and work has turned into a pile of dung. My gym program is hurt as my back is stil wonky. That's one thing I did on this trip - ate less than my usual way too much, and after the hearing I ran 4 miles. I should have run FROM the hearing. But...the nice thing about the many focus areas of my life is that whenever one is meh there are others that shine. Right now I can't see any shine, and I can't even dull my senses with alcohol because I have too much work to do.

I lose. Sick of losing. Don't see any not-losing in the future.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Stress, bullshit, workload, these are all names for the same thing, that thing being whatever unpleasantness you are expected to do for the money you are paid. Unless you are the ringmaster of the work circus (these guys live and work in parallel universe with its own rules), the way work works is, here is a mound of crap you would otherwise rather not do and in compensation for holding your nose and getting smacked on the ass periodically by your betters higher up the chain of butt-sniffers, they give you an apportionment of cash. The more onerous, unpleasant, taxing, and stressful the mound of crap is, ideally, the bigger wad of dough you are allowed by the ringmasters. If you are getting paid a big, horse choking roll of the green stuff, and you are not feeling drained, stressed, harried, and harassed, you are either a ringmaster, or you are a sociopath and have figured out a way to steal your living from the sweat of someone else -- or even better, you may be both a ringmaster and a sociopath.

One thing that can change this relationship between stress and cash is if you happen to find yourself having the sort of personality type that enjoys and thrives on stress and bullshit, these people very much exist. This means that the punishment dolled out by your job and your betters is actually a pleasure and a tonic for you, and you get to have both the huge wad of green and a sense of completeness and fulfillment in your work life. Most people are not this way, and if I read Jose's post correctly, he may not be one of these blessed mutants, and is experiencing the expected stress that comes from a grown up, big time lawyer gig.

I dunno...the most miserable and hard-working ass-sucking people I ever met were technically ringmasters. Nobody has it worse than the business owners - they have to suck whatever comes their way, work whatever hours it takes, eat whatever wrong they're fed - or their life sinks. At least us losers can quit.

Fey, these business owner's are just over their heads and probably two missteps from failure. My most recent experience was working for an elderly, distant business owner who kept fuel in his two jet and one prop fleet of planes by cutting the wages of his lowest level employees.