Into the Swing of Things

It's almost June, which means I've been working at this job for over 7 months now, and I can finally say that I'm starting to feel integrated in this office and the work-flow. I've had a full, or full-enough plate since mid-March or so. With mid-May deadlines for pretty much everything I was working on, I was nervous that after a closing, filing date, client deadline and far too many 12+ hour days in a row, I was going to have nothing to do. Literally, nothing was lined up on my to-do list starting May 19th.

I didn't have time to start dreading the routine of knocking on office doors and begging people for work, but I was conscious that it was looming. Then, something new and magical happened. About 20 minutes after the closing call for the deal that had been taking up all my time, I was staffed on another new one. Then a bankruptcy matter I worked on in February revived enough to give me some hours of research. I marveled for a minute at my good luck, and then suddenly realized that this was how it is supposed to work. People are supposed to call you and keep you busy, and people that you do good work for are supposed to call you the next time something else comes up. Furthermore, this is what I was promised would happen by everyone back when I started. "It just takes a while to get integrated and ramp up" they would say. Or "January and February tend to be slow, but spring and summer are busy, so don't worry."

Now I finally breathing a small sigh of relief that maybe I won't have to start taking whatever projects are handed to me just to keep busy. Maybe I can finally say that I only want to work on transactional matters. I am finding that I really enjoy doing finance work. After this last deal that had borrowers in 5 different countries and various lending structures, I feel like I know something about something. Having a supervisor who cared about mentoring and teaching helped me learn a lot more than just what I needed to know for my role as a first year associate. And understanding just 70% of a conference call feels as gratifying as watching a commercial in Spanish after 1 semester of classes and realizing you actually understand what they're saying! I can't say that I'm sure I want to do this kind of work forever, but I really like it for now. And if I never have to use a Lexis password again, I will not shed a tear.

Of course, it kind of stinks that in under four months, I will suddenly fall off the face of the earth as far as these supervisors are concerned. I already know that I am missing the department retreat in September, the department holiday party in December and the busy months of September through December of work. In a way, I think it's better that I'm a relatively unknown, and completely replaceable, first year associate. All I'm really missing out on is the training and the chance to build up a good base knowledge so that people want to work with me as a second year associate. But then again, at least at my firm where people don't choose a department until the 3rd year, I won't automatically be behind my peers because I miss 4 months for maternity leave.

So while I am really, REALLY, looking forward to maternity leave, I am a little bit sad at the possibility that the ramp-up of the past 7 months will be for naught and I will have to beg and plead for work all over again next winter/spring when I return. But I guess being slow at work when I have a 3 year old and an infant won't be the worst thing in the world.