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I realize that I have a tendency to dwell on negative things in these pages. Sometimes I even record negative reactions to a news media and general culture of negative reports. However, my original intention here was to be as objective as possible about the subject, so that I might learn and others might understand what it is to be a pee-on auditor. Having said that, I have some good news for the day. There is the obvious bright point related to the fact that today is my last day of work until July 12. I have saved up most of my vacation time since I started in September, and combined that with the Independence Day holiday, in order to get three full weeks of relief from my routine. I am off to Japan, Singapore, and Indonesia for a fun-filled adventure with old friends and new places. Even in addition to that, I have to say that I was more than pleased with my big annual review that I had yesterday with a partner at our firm. We actually have all kinds of fine policies about helping people grow and exchanging real-time feedback, but this annual review process is the sort of culmination of all the mentoring and whatnot. I chose one of the most down-to-earth partners in the firm to have this two-hour meeting with. Here's how it went. He starts off by asking if I like my job. I want to tell him how hard I work and how dedicated I am to the future of our firm, but at the same time I can't lie. I say it was good overall. Second, he asks me what was the hardest part of my first year. Answer: the mere fact that I have to work everyday, plus overtime, commuting, staffing, and other issues I have recorded here before. So, he pulls up my stats and tells me that I had worked 220 hours of overtime in my first eight months, which is a full 50% more than the rest of my start class. Plus, I have achieved 98% chargability for the same time period compared to others at 85%. Okay, so maybe I have a reason for being fatigued. The discussion continues with my other experiences for the year and my expectations for the future. All along, I keep dropping in key questions which I had listed out before (see below). While none of these were really easy questions, he fielded all of them as if he really cared about my improvement and enjoyment of my job. Even with this down-to-earth guy, I didn't expect such a warm welcome from a partner more than making ten times my salary. He assured me that the firm truly is trying to retain people and that things like flexible work programs and better staffing coordination really are possible. There weren't any big conclusions reached through this meeting. The fact that I have moved up from an Inexperienced Assistant to and Experienced Assistent was pretty much assumed. The fact that I will get a raise on September 1 was not discussed. However, it felt good to get a few things off my chest and then find out that the people up above might actually care. Sure he complained a bit about Gen-Xers wanting too much, but I guess in an amazing economy like this, the firm has to fight even to retain delinquent staff people like me. |