Since beginning this chapter in my life, there are changes that I have made very deliberately and which I relish on a daily basis. To set the alarm is a kin to a form of torture (and only resorted to in the most necessary of situations). “Work” is something that I actually look forward to and my productivity is something that now comes naturally, although I spend far fewer hours “in the office”.
For all these advantages, there is something, however, that I greatly miss from my lawyering days. I now work alongside my life partner and I could not ask for a better mate (in life, love and the office), but I miss dearly the friendships that took root and blossomed in the daily 9 (okay, we'll be honest) 10 to 8 drudgery of what was then my existence.
When you spend that much time with people, I guess you are bound to love them or hate them. At my last job, I was blessed with probably the best co-workers I could have dreamed up. My bosses were not only the best in the business, but my mentors and buddies. Our secretary and paralegal in the section were amazing at their jobs but also confidantes and friends, and the other associates were, by and large, fun, funny, ubercompetent and all-around good people. But the daily absence of one peron in particular is most felt.
There was a lot of build up to Christine's arrival (or perhaps better said, victorious return) to our section. She had worked as a summer associate at the firm prior to my arrival. All my bosses were incredibly excited that she was coming back as an associate attorney after finishing law school and taking a year to clerk for district court judge in Austin. According to all sources, she was smart, diligent, detail-oriented, eager, hard-working and had given up any sort of hope for a personal life long ago- in short, the dream junior attorney.
Needless to say, I felt threatened. Like the aging prom queen who had learned to trade on her looks for so long, I recognized that I lacked at least four of these six qualities but had made my personality the currency on which I traded and, for the moment, thought that I was fooling my bosses into believing that I was sufficiently enough of these missing qualities to keep treading water. Also like the prom queen whose currency was depreciating, I didn't need someone coming in and serving as a measuring stick against the true deficiency of these fundamental attributes of a young and rising lawyer could be measured.
And everyone was right. Christine is not only incredibly intelligent, but smart in the kind of way that attorneys that are really great at their jobs are smart, the kind of smart that justifies the $800/hour billing rates.
She also has the personality for the job. A partner could come to her at 6 PM on a Friday before a holiday weekend (this scenario is, unfortunately, all too realistic) and tell her that she needs to write a 300-page legal document that is meant to cover all the nuances, intricacies and possible worse-case scenarios of a loan worth $600 million. The client expects the document first thing after the holiday weekend, and of course the partner will need to review it before it goes to the client, so that means a deadline of 3PM on Sunday. While only a handful of associate attorneys would ever have the balls (or independent wealth) to flat-out refuse, most would at least let the partner know what plans exactly she was going to have to cancel, then salvage her abbreviated holiday weekend by going out and getting drunk before hitting it hard on Saturday (at least, that's what I imagine most would do).
Not Christine. Christine would (and does) cancel everything, perhaps pull out a pair of sweats she keeps in the office, get comfortable and go through the document once before turning in at 3AM, only to go back to the office at 8 AM and fine-tune her work. Her goal is to hand it off to the partner in the best shape possible so that he has to spend as little time as possible correcting her work. She is exactly who you want working for you if you are a partner or the client. She is, in short, a legal superstar.
I should have hated her. Not only did she put, so I believed, my deficiencies so clearly in relief, but she set a standard much higher than what is required to survive and even thrive in the notoriously cutthroat world of Big Firm law. If she had had the accompanying personality traits that are usually hardwired on the double helix (manipulative, greedy, duplicitious, selfish), then I would have probably, lamely, sworn to take her out, only to lose steam before the campaign of sabotage could ever get underway. But that didn't happen because in addition to being wicked smart, hardworking, blah blah blah, Christine is, in another word, a sweetheart.
She is humble regarding her talents (too much so, in my opinion), incredibly generous of her time, affection, and resources and has the rare combination of being both a good listener and conversationalist. She is funny, irreverent, honest and, when work permits, she can hold her own in knocking out a bottle of wine. I have so many wonderful memories of sitting in Christine's office, talking about unreasonable superiors (unlike her, I did take issue with the surprise, late-day work assignments), incompetent opposing counsel or even parsing through the significance of my last exchange with Sergio (she was, after all, a witness to it all).
I loved that office because despite the pressures to conform that characerize the practice of law, particularly Big Law, I was allowed to be quirky me. And Christine embodied that acceptance, and in terms of man hours/wasted billable hours, put up with me more than anyone else.
Since our move to Madrid, my and Christine's friendship has had to adjust to the changed circumstances. Unlike most of my best friends who live across the globe, our friendship was based on regular interactions. Frankly, I didn't know whether it would survive the distance.
But not only has our relationship survived but I believe that we are better friends now than the day I left Houston. Since she is always in the office, I know exactly where to reach her at all times and, similar to when we were just two doors down from each other, I can surprise hijack her time and attention, though now by calling her from random Skype numbers as opposed to closing her door behind me and ignoring her impotent assertions that she needed to get work done.
Because Christine had been witness to the evolution of my relationship with Sergio, she was one of the first people I wanted to tell about the engagement and was the first person I asked to be in the wedding (admittedly, this offered the additional benefit of decreasing the probability that she would cancel last minute if she were actually in the wedding party). She did two all-nighters back-to-back in order to fly down to Austin and then drive over to Fredericksburg by 10 AM the day before the wedding, despite being exhausted, suffering from a back injury and being on the verge of what sounded like death, judging from a persistent cough.
Once Christine was there, she took all that energy, attention and brain power that clients happily pay hundreds of dollars an hour for and devoted it all to such mundane tasks as making sure my fingernail polish didn't streak and getting us to the wedding on time. Just like Christine does in her job, she sought out holes to plug and ways in which she could make everything easier for us. This generosity of spirt and attention was much welcomed and both Sergio and I were so touched by it. And, as if this wasn't enough, Christine hosted us for over a week in her apartment both before and after the wedding, allowing us to use her place as the center for operations, despite the fact that this arrangement forced her on the couch. (?!?)
Christine, you are a true sweetheart, we love you and we hope to have the opportunity to do for you what you have so selflessly done for us. We are always here for you.
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