Big Fish, Small Pond

Total Black: $1,375.96
Total Red: $270,000.16

I referenced back in Time to Shine the opportunities that may present themselves here.  I’m starting to see things materialize.  I recently was “drafted” to serve on the executive board of a local organization.  It’s a new organization and may provide a significant amount of exposure. 

Trifecta

Total Black: $6.71
Total Red: $245,724.55

When it rains, it pours, eh?  And when it’s shines . . . it’s hot?  Not sure what a corollary to that old adage would be, but today goes down in the books.  The blog broke a few records. 

Curtain Down

Total Black: $109.51
Total Red: $238,469.56

Today was my last day as an usher at New World Stages.  Curtain down on my ushering career.  It was sad night.  In many ways actually, a few more that I expected. 

Synchronicity

Total Black: $403.65
Total Red: $229,634.11

While walking to the theatre tonight, I started thinking about the synchronicity of life.  How life sometimes randomly syncs itself, so to speak.  For a few weeks now, I’ve had flashes this good-bye party thrown in the Time-Out New York Lounge at New World Stages.  The bar is decorated in a theme matching the farther location I’d be moving to.  Lots of people are there to see me off: from different chapters in my life.  Perhaps it’s time to start planning that party. 

Cold Feet

Total Black: $235.60
Total Red: $226,342.25

As I walked home tonight from the contract attorney position, I started thinking about the opportunities I may soon be presented with.  Well . . . resumed thinking about them might be more accurate as I’ve not really been able to stop masticating over them.  But tonight a few coincidences occurred that caused me to think about things a bit differently.

Times of Tragedy

Total Black: $66.95
Total Red: $229,387.70

Everywhere I’ve gone these past few days Haiti and the recent earthquake there have prevailed.  Meetup.com is encouraging organizers to use their meetup groups as vehicles for donation.  Facebook friends post copious comments about relief efforts.  Of course, Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta are single-handedly rescuing thousands by the hour.  The tragedy has even brought former political opponents together.  Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have teamed up, part of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, to help raise money and aid for Haiti relief efforts.  Once I get paid, I’ll donate something to their efforts.  Personally, I approve wholeheartedly of former presidents staying involved in politics.  John Quincy Adams and William Howard Taft would be two I can think of who remained active after their presidencies: Adams as a Congressman from his home state and Taft as the Chief Justice of the United States.  The tragedy in Haiti even got a guy from the theatre gig to donate 20% of the profits from a production of Much Ado About Nothing he’s putting on at New World Stages.  I’m surprised that I haven’t been hit up yet by some of the dating sites I’m on: hump your way to helping Haiti.

Boycott BigLaw

Total Black: $66.11
Total Red: $230,859.71

I’ve been thinking over the past few days about large corporate law firms.  About some of the changes that have already occurred—like attorney layoffs (read: firings) or deferrals (read: delayed firings).  Blogs like Above the Law and Law Shucks have detailed the dramas and charted the cuts.  According to Law Shucks, a website tracking law-firm layoffs, including both associates and staff, law firms have laid-off over 14,000 people since January 2008.  This, in an industry where layoffs were never public, always shame-ridden, and sometimes career-ending.  Nevertheless, once the tides began to turn, associates were the first kicked to the curb. Then came staff layoffs. Then more associate layoffs and staff layoffs until finally firms thought up the Great Procrastination, punting the issue altogether by deferring associates and providing stipends all along hoping the economy rebounds in the meantime or the associates decide not to return.  And now, to add insult to injury, one law firm, DLA Piper, has decided to restructure how its associates earn their salaries—not their bonuses—but their salaries.  According to Above the Law, starting in 2010, roughly 10-15% of an associate’s salary will be withheld and made contingent upon partner satisfaction with associate performance.  When do we say enough is enough?

Why?

Total Black: $65.23
Total Red: $230,820.71

One word.  Probably one of the most frequently uttered.  In any language.  It’s also one of the most powerful, most demanding, and most accusatory words in human language.  Not to mention the most despairing.  It’s the word uttered in utter stupefaction when something unfair happens.  It’s the scream of a mother holding her lifeless child in her hands.  It’s the weeping plea of a jilted lover.  The demanding jab of an inquisitive student.  It’s also one question I haven’t yet asked myself.

Cue Seal, People Asking Why 

Virtually Incensed

Total Black: $63.15
Total Red: $230,600.32

While letting my apartment air out from the exterminators’ visit this afternoon, I took time at a nearby Starbucks to read today’s New York Times.  I was utterly befuddled . . . nay dumbfounded . . . by an article on the front page.  Claire Cain Miller and Brad Stone penned an article titled “Virtual Goods Start Bringing Real Paydays.”  I use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.  And I’ve played a few hours of Second Life.  So I’m not unfamiliar to the idea of using real money to purchase virtual currency or virtual goods.  But I would have never imagined what Miller and Stone reported. 

A Day in the Life

Total Black: $33.16
Total Red: $227,972.40

We’re back.  And we’re live.  Well . . . at least in the internet sense.  Daily posts now show up in google searches.

When I was first laid-off in mid-October, I was in the middle of moving apartments.  That move took me long into November, partly because I inherited a very troubling and irksome problem with the new apartment that had to be dealt with immediately. A bit of background, and further to yesterday’s post, throughout much of 2008, a sense of foreboding slowly started rising within me.  We just were not busy at the firm.  And people started to “go missing” without explanation. One day while at the gym, at Silver Sneakers no less (an aerobics class for older people), my mother just happened to start chatting with another lady all about my job security concerns.  By random (or not?) chance, that lady had a daughter who worked at one of the local DA’s offices in the New York area.  Naturally, I was unbelievably irritated at my mother’s loose lips.  But she insisted that I had to meet this woman lest I make a fool of out of her. So around August 2008, I reached out to that contact.  Turned out, the daughter is an important person at the office and just happens to be the person who coordinates pro bono attorneys.

Never Been Further Apart

Total Black: $137.25
Total Red: $228,156.40

Well, at least that check was cashed, so I can stop counting that $500 in cash on-hand.  It went to pay tax advice from back in December.  And the advice was to stop paying my bills, let everything go into collection, and survive off the severance from the firm.  Great advice!  Isn’t that what people tend to do anyway?  Isn’t that’s why they seek professional / strategic advice because they don’t want to continue down that path?  Oh . . . how fitting . . . as I type . . . there it is . . . the first call of the day from the credit card companies.  I’m not even past 30-days late—on any of them—but it seems they’ve now started calling as soon as you miss a payment.  (I’m one of those few who still have a land-line number and cell phone number; maybe it’s just me, but I don’t want those companies calling me on my cell!)  Of course, they don’t leave a message.

It’s funny that for some time now the sound of the telephone ringing makes me bristle.  More often than not, I don’t even look to see who’s calling.  I know it won’t be someone calling to chat.  So too opening the mailbox.  I can’t recall the last time I received a piece of mail that wasn’t a bill or a statement or a notice of some sort.  And it’s starting to get that way with email as well.  Funny, isn’t it?  Many of our channels of communication are now sources of stress not joy.  Starting this blog put me in contact recently with a few people with whom I’d fallen out of touch.  And it got me thinking about “keeping in touch” and what it means today, especially given my current situation.