Recently, as I was contemplating taking a couple of days off work when the school year ends for my kids in June and I got to remembering when I first started as a biglaw associate. In a session on one of the first days, we met with junior associates who were supposed to answer all of our questions that we didn't want to ask in more formal sessions. Quickly the question came up about how to ask for vacation days and I remember the others that I was starting with being almost giddy about the fact that there wasn't any formal approval process and that we didn't need permission to take time off and even that it didn't seem like anyone was keeping track of it. I also remember being a little relieved that it didn't seem like vacation had to be something that one planned far in advance and didn't need to be coordinated with the entire office. Afterall, it seemed nice that you could take vacation whenever your work scheduled allowed. Ha!-- what a misnomer that whole idea is. See, the schedule of a junior associate in a national law firm, will never allow vacation. Instead, one has to force vacation into a riduculously busy work load and take it regardless of whether you have time to take it or not -- or not take it at all, an option that many see to go for.

Also, I have come to learn that the fact that vacation is very informal for attorneys means, exactly that -- it is informal. The truth is that vacation in general is a very loose concept. I've tried to take a grand total of 4 vacation days since the beginning of this calendar year and have actually only been able to take 1 vacation day where I didn't work, although I was not in the office for the other three.

I was reminded of this today when reading a post on The Glass Hammer. In it, the author talks about how the flex-time schedules of her colleagues end up throwing off her attempts to balance work and life. She writes about how parents that work after their kids go to bed expect her to be responsive in the evenings and others that come to work first thing in the morning also expect her input early in the morning so she is left working around the clock in order to be there for everyone who works at different times. This is similar to my vacation quandry because the same thing happens when I try to take vacation and, obviously, my clients and my co-workers are not also on vacation.

The Glass Hammer post is great and well written. I wonder whether some of her resentment towards her parent co-workers is misplaced, however. The truth, given the facts as she has presented them, is that she is the one that is working 'round the clock. The question that needs to be asked is whether that sort of work schedule is expected of her. She obviously feels that she is expected to work so much and that others are not expected to. She blames this difference on the family and life choices of her and her co-workers but I can't help feel like she has nobody to blame but herself. Maybe she doesn't feel like she has a reason to say "no" while those of her co-workers with kids are able to say "no". She lists the things in her life that she wants to make time for, yet... she doesn't make that time. This makes me wonder if there some benefit to her, e.g. career advancement or otherwise, that can provide reason for her to work so much? If she is in biglaw or a similar field than her work hours are likely giving her some sort of competitve advantage over her co-workers who aren't working similarly. In the least, working as much as is expected is what everyone strives to do and I don't know why she doesn't see that everyone is likely struggling with that. Truth be told, her parent co-workers are probably trying to keep up with her and are probably just trying to be responsive when they email her late in the evening after being out of pocket for a fews hours between dinner and the bedtime routines.

The comment to the post, is right on point. The author of the post should try saying "No" and see how it goes. Likewise, on my two days of vacation that I'm planning in June, I am going to try to just say "No" and see how it goes. However, my hopes aren't high because I know that I don't have it in me to say "no" to client requests. We'll see... I think I need a vacation in a part of the world without blackberry access to teach me how to take a vacation again. Hmmmm....