Labor Day

I am going to try a more off-the-cuff form of blogging to see if that works for me and whether it results in more posts. Hopefully it won’t be a stream of consciousness ie a compilation of tweets. Note to self – check out whether I can incorporate tweets into this blog as posts. Seems obviously possible.

The tyranny of time sheets – as much as I have espoused in the past about alternative fee arrangements, time sheets aren’t going away any time soon. Even with fixed fee arrangements, time sheets are required to validate (either internally or externally) the time spent on the matter.

What’s more, there is this internal stress of having to at least do some billable work every day. And that competes with all the other stuff one has to do in a firm from marketing, research (not always billable), preparing ppts for talks, bouncing issues off colleagues, preparing bills (which take an inordinate amount of time) etc.

And so the weekend thankfully comes and it’s Labor Day which means, as a wit stated in a tweet “Labor Day …. a day to labour? :-p” @ongpeipei. The best witticisms have a painful grain of truth. That means I use weekends to catch up on my billable work. It’s not supposed to be this way!

But at least I get to listen to music when I work at home. Playing now.

 

How’s it going?

That’s the most common question I am asked since starting work. And the answer it is that it has been going really well. The change for me isn’t the work itself but the lifestyle change. Having been used to a work style where being in a specific location most of the time wasn’t required, it was initially a shock to my system to be at 6 Battery Road everyday within specific times. Of course being a director/partner of the firm, I am given discretion within reason but there are certain expectations that I have to meet.

And Singapore and the practice of law is a more formally attired environment. No more software industry casualness of dress too. Boo hoo!

From a work perspective, there are many good things from the interaction with fellow professionals to being immersed in pleadings and cases. The latter has left me wiped out at the end of the day for the first few weeks which explains the silence of this blog. I did think of retiring this blog because of the time crush but having gotten some positive feedback, I think I will plow on.

It takes time to develop a work rhythm and I hope that I will be able to get into that. I am not there yet. The main challenge is always time because being in a time based profession, there is never enough time to do everything from marketing, administration, research, speaking engagements, and billable work, let alone blog. My other concern now is that my blogging may inadvertently reveal areas of concern I am working on for clients. In the course of research areas of law for clients, interesting nuggets of information or opinion surface and I have to be mindful of keeping it confidential.

Having said all the above, I am enjoying my colleagues very much and the work. Hallway conversations are totally underrated as a form of social networking and dissemination of information.

And so onto the next week!