Finally getting enough sleep after months - no, years - of going short on it. I still feel exhausted, but the mortal death’s door sensation is draining away and I can go through my day in a reasonable facsimile of human responsiveness. Which is great news for the plans I have around my job.
So I guess it’s time for a little about my work. There’s only so much I can disclose due to confidentiality and not being an idiot, but in short, I work as a legal secretary at a large firm in a large city. I struck gold when I landed this job, and I fought hard for every bit of it.
Something fundamental shifted inside me when I went for it. Even worn down and depressed as fuck from teaching and two years of a miserable relationship, I mustered the resolve to drive a hard bargain for my salary and assert my value as an employee from the first interview. I had a stroke of good fortune (well, not really; the resume and cover letter that I posted online kicked ass) when my resume attracted the notice of a legal recruiter who set me up with the interview and negotiated my salary up to a nice cut above the usual starting salary for my position. And they wanted me badly. Where most of the people I’ve spoken with at the firm underwent a hiring process that spanned many weeks, I secured the job offer in less than 48 hours.
I’m not entirely sure what happened, but I think it had to do with every fiber in what I know as my being suddenly, absolutely, and in unison revolting against a shadow life of toiling for the grudging table scraps of lesser people. Everything in me snapped and screamed ENOUGH (or possibly FUCK THIS). I was, quite simply, done. Done with nonsense. Done with constant criticism (Christ, teaching is such an abusive environment). Done with depending on others’ terms. I had never worked at a large firm before, and envisioning the huge corporate professionalism about which I knew nothing scared me out of my MIND at that interview table, but I channeled the fear into performance energy and put all my charisma and cool rationality into impressing the living fuck out of the people I decided to view as my equals. And I seized this job like I was born to it.
That assertiveness that I stepped into at the interview has only grown. Almost a year later I have risen in the ranks of my department to the recognition of nearly all the attorneys and staff. At various points I have approached each of the attorneys I assist to tell them, “You are underutilizing me. I am very, very smart. I have been doing this for a long time. My grammar is perfect. I can handle a lot. And I can boost your job performance like you wouldn’t believe. Make better use of my skills.” I have also approached my managers and said, “Give me more responsibilities. Here are the attorneys I want to work for no matter how the secretarial assignments shift. Here is where I want my job to go. Here are my ideas for the department.” And I have done all this with a political panache I never knew I had, so that instead of pissing people off or coming across as brazen, I have won respect and trust.
A long time ago, under vastly different circumstances, a tearful, cowed me was told by an angry manager, “You would be eaten alive at a big firm.” I am happy to discover that she was many orders of magnitude mistaken. A big firm, it turns out, has always been the answer. I was BORED. I am not bored any longer. Here I have room to stretch and cultivate my ambitions. I have my eyes fixed hard on the present and the future both, everything I do in the former designed for the impact of the latter, with a heretofore latent talent for building tactics on the fly and navigating political maneuvers with a smoothness that should probably not astonish me as much as it does (this feels like walking onto a dance floor at a huge event, having never danced, and suddenly learning that your body knows all the steps and takes OFF while your mind is watching your own nearly flawless performance and going “what the fuck?”). I have a lot to learn still, and mistakes to make, but I know I’ll land on my feet and learn even more from the mistakes. I have plans for my job. Plans for the department. Plans for the firm. And lining up the pieces to get there is fun as hell.
I fucking love what I do. It doesn’t fit my adolescent impressions of success - and people still ask me, “Don’t you want to be a lawyer?” to which without missing a beat I always answer NO - but I like this better. I can have influence, and achieve my real goals, more completely in this position than I could as an attorney. I like helping. I like a nine-to-five. And I’d rather be the power behind the throne - Varys, rather than the contenders for the crown of the Seven Kingdoms (come on, you knew the reference had to happen). I want to be the one running the show in the background, and making the firm into a truly amazing place.
All of that is miles ahead. I’m still just starting out, still the newbie, still an underling. But I’m setting up the board. I’m attracting notice. I’m focusing on intense excellence in my current responsibilities, and putting out feelers for the ones I want in the future.
And the great thing? I’m doing all this by just being myself. I am doing all this by being warm and funny and enthusiastic and helpful. I’m doing all this by being direct and plainspoken and forceful. I’m doing all this by being tactful and diplomatic. I’m doing all this by taking no shit and no prisoners.
Damn, this feels good.
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