well

Well, I made it through the first week. I've set a nice schedule of 4am-4 or 5pm, which allows me to have plenty of quiet, uninterrupted productive time in the morning while being able to have a social life in the evenings. And by "social life" I mean, more often than not, dog park time and hand-shakin'/baby-kissin' time at a variety of rather silly - but necessary - community events.

I have two paralegals, who are awesome and awesomer but I haven't quite gotten a read on my secretary yet. All I know is that she is fastidiously matches her eyeshadow to her shirt. Very, very, very fortunately, my own personal quirks (plenty of those) and practice preferences appear to align with both paralegals. Grateful that we think alike. My office is decent-sized, with lots of natural light and big windows with - get this - a pleasant view! I've been picking up on hints that the 5 people I replaced were especially well-liked by the support staff, so I've been treading carefully there.

Spent the week getting a handle on my caseload. It is always a curious thing to go through files that once belonged to someone else.

One thing that is amusing? I regularly opposed several of my new colleagues when I was at my old firm. There has been some good-natured ribbing going back-and-forth there :)

Otherwise, I've been totally left to my own devices. Haven't seen or spoken with the attorney I'm supposed to be teaming up with, though I am hoping that will happen this week.

Oh! And I did a major writing assignment for another attorney and was told I did "a very, very nice job." Now, my old firm was an old-school type of place where the only way I knew I was doing a minimally adequate job was if I wasn't getting yelled at. Eventually I figured out that I couldn't be doing a minimally adequate job - my old firm definitely would not have kept me on the payroll for that kind of quality. Took me a while to realize that. Anyway, my Precious Snowflake generation simply can't be yelled at; we will positively shrivel up and die without regular, copious injections of praise. Remember, folks, my generation got trophies for mere participation - not actually winning - lest anyone's self-esteem feel hurt and offended. At my old firm, "praise" was a grudging "you didn't totally mess that up." So to get a "very, very nice job" message this evening was, well, very, very nice :)