Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Picnic

The thing that I love about University Food Services is that they can really put on a good party. For instance, you tell them “picnic for 30 foreign attorneys + hosts” and they really go all out. The food: yummy chicken parts, brats (boiled?), imitation-meat burgers – on white bread buns, with pudding pies for dessert.
 
And the setting. This is one green town. Perfect for a picnic. So take a look at our beautiful environs (below).
 
Yet, this is all trivial. It’s the company that makes or breaks a party and this group is up up up up there in terms of greatness.

We talked about the work week for a lawyer in Japan, the US, Brazil and Germany. Work to live, live to work – a familiar theme. The Japanese lawyer is expected to bill 3000 hours per year. 3000 hours!! (In a top NY firm you’re closer to 2500 which is insane; in Madison it’s around 2000.) In Brazil, the partner in one of the top branch offices of a US firm tells us that you could not get away with setting the bar at over 1500. The Europeans and South Americans praised their stars for the sanity which prevailed in their practices.

Excuse me, I need to pause and get something to eat. The veggie burger sucked, even with all the condiments (available choices: sauerkraut (why??) and yellow mustard), all you could taste was the white bread.



reveling in the beauty of the place Posted by Hello

Facing reality

I have been avoiding my office for many weeks now in the way that one would avoid disturbing encounters with people who are going to cause one's mood to plummet. It’s just not fun being there anymore. Everything is significantly out of control.

I know, everyone has stacks of unread papers, but mine look like a monumental groundswell had caused all books and papers to rise in uneven formations on top of every available surface. And the problem is that I hate it. I hate working in conditions that are symptomatic of a chaotic lack of control, like an announcement to the world : “hey, there’s no captain minding this ship!” Indeed, when things get this bad I begin stacking books outside the door hoping that someone’s ignoble impulse to steal will make them disappear. (They never do.)

What to do? Here’s my game plan: Spend the afternoon dumping EVERYTHING on the floor and putting it back into newly developed and defined spaces. No leaving the office until entire project is completed. File cabinets are spared the overhaul (after all, I can’t see the clutter there), but everything else gets inspected and, if at all possible, trashed.

Today is the day. I’m a little late getting started, what with this blog and a few friendly exchange with colleagues who had mistakenly concluded that I was on leave (I am usually much more present in the building than I have been recently). Now, just one quick run to State Street to see what’s new there, maybe a hasty cup of coffee to pump the adrenaline a bit and then I’m getting right to it.
 
Okay then, first State Street.