All Things Profane and Sacred

Sorry to be doing a "Bar Bulletin Review", but the stuff this month is just so damn funny. There's this article called "Meet the Millennials" (by Melody Finnemore). She says us new attorneys are called "millennials" because we mostly graduated around the turn of the century (god help anyone who calls me a millennial, or worse, a 'millie'). We're thought of as weird, because we don't want to live our jobs, we want to have a work/life balance. We don't want to work 10 hours and then go 'network' for 3 more hours, but we want to go home to our loved ones and, gasp, spend time with them.

Here's a great quote, "I hear students talk about quality of life and not wanting to work a 90 hour work week, as they put it. I don't see that they are able to do that in reality, but this group wants to make that happen for themselves." I'll tell you what-I don't think wanting to work reasonable hours is such an unreasonable request. With so many out of work attorneys, there is absolutely no reason in the world for such out of control labor demands. After this charming discussion, there's a few paragraphs on erosion of employee loyalty in firms, and "oh, my gosh, what'll we do to retain associates and make them work for partnership? Why are they leaving us after paying off their debt?"

Reason number 3 why I think this is a hilarious article (probably just proving that I fit the damn hell Millie Mold): New lawyers want their pro bono work to be work! That's right-they don't want to sit on a committee, or attend useless meetings! They want to show up and do something! Have their time mean something! Accomplish! Weirdly enough, just a few paragraphs back they were characterizing us as slackers because we don't want to sit in an office 7 days a week.

Hmmm. Maybe we're just more efficient than you old farts. What with our new fangled technology and all.

Update: Yesterday I forgot to mention that this is the article that marvels: "(Millies) . . . have friends of another race-not acquaintances, but friends." I think that quote is all I have to say.