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: Screaming Bean

Damned if you do...

I know I whine about my job incessantly. For that I do apologize. I wish things were great, and that I enjoyed what I did everyday, but that is so far from the truth that it pains me to even think that I do this work.

The issue that confounds me currently is this: I'm constantly being held to a standard that is impossible to meet. Since all my work has to be vetted by the managing partner, all emails have to be sent for review first. In response to my emails I'm told that either that it's too friendly a tone, or in the alternative, that I'm being far too harsh. There is no happy medium. The other issue is, regardless of how I write, the edits come back no longer recognizable as my own writing. Nice short concise sentences become these run-on monsters using as many commas as humanly possible. And of course, since I have to send it out under my signature...it looks like I write like this. I would never write a full paragraph-long sentence. One, it's too hard to read, and two, it just looks like a long-winded moron wrote it. I keep getting told that this is going to help me grow as an attorney, but all it's doing is keeping me under the partner's thumb and I'm not learning a damn thing. Oh, and I work too quickly. Not a problem with accuracy mind you...its just that I need to take my time and ponder things. I say it's more that I'm making others in the office look bad. Procrastination may have been a virtue in law school, but I don't abide by procrastination as a creative writing technique. Sitting on a document and reading it 10 more times isn't going to make me change my language choices spontaneously. That's not who I am. I think precisely the first time, which is why it looks like it does. I'm not a creative writer, I'm a lawyer. There's a difference.

Full post as published by Screaming Bean on February 25, 2008 (boomark / email).