Chapter 10: The Prestige Trap

[My first job had me doing commercial litigation at one of the state's more prestigious firms.]

I took two weeks off for my honeymoon and was told (gently— it wasn't a dressing-down) that I needed to do a better job of clearing off my desk before going away so long, and should also make a point of checking in regularly with the office.  I wasn't permitted to be off the leash. 

A minimum of 150 billable hours was expected every month, and I tried to stay comfortably above the minimum.  I worked many evenings and on about half of the weekends.  In some ways, working on the weekend was pleasant.  I could wear jeans, and there was a sense of camaraderie with the other associates in their jeans.  The only distractions were our chatting, but since the other associates were all good company the distractions were welcome.  We also socialized some away from the office, going out for lunch or for drinks in the evening.

I was working with a group of people I liked.  I was paid well.  In my first years of practice I got to handle some of my own cases, and while they were all stupid and one was a disaster, I was learning the ropes.  Most of my time was spent on complex litigation work that was, in a legal sense, relatively sophisticated.  I was beginning to acquire some confidence in my abilities.  What was there to complain about?

And yet the sensation I first experienced in the Arizona Biltmore kept recurring. I felt as though I was living someone else's life.  Some people pulled back from the brink of death describe out-of-body experiences.  This was the opposite—an inside-the-body experience, in which I found myself filling up a body that somehow wasn't me.  And it was becoming a chronic condition, not a déjà vu–like episode.  I kept trying to talk myself into being happy: where are you going to find a better job?  But when my best friends from college visited me at the office, I felt like the world's biggest phony in my necktie.  I was clumsy and tongue-tied around the people who really knew me.