I was a legal secretary for almost ten years and learned a lot more about myself and others than I care to know.
I had gotten married two years before the brochure advertising going to school to become a paralegal arrived at my house. I read through it, did some research, and verified that the law was indeed an in demand field. I filled out the paperwork and entered school a few months later. My first class was a general class. I was a part time night student working during the day. The schooling taught me the law and how to research, but it didn’t really tell me anything about the real world of working in a law office.
When I graduated, I applied and applied and applied. This was during a good economy. Finally, one day I got interviewed by a small local law firm. I kept my fingers crossed and when the call came for a second interview, I was beyond thrilled. I ran out and bought a second suit. The interview went well, and then there was the test which verified my skills. The senior attorney offered me not the job I had applied for (receptionist) but the legal secretary position which paid better. I signed the paperwork and floated home.
When I arrived for work I was wearing a suit. By now i had several. The office was a flurry of activity. One girl was leaving and I was to take the place of the girl who was taking her place. I was taken aback by the distance of everyone in the office. Office politics played a heavy roll and not one individual welcomed me. I was treated as an outsider by everyone there and hated every day working in the office. Then one day the senior attorney fell off his roof. The other attorneys were not all that helpful with the big case he was handling, and he was forced to lay everyone off, one at a time. I was the first to go and was glad to leave.
I moved on to a new job where, once again, office politics played a roll. As a matter of fact, every job I held in the legal field reeked of office politics. After a number of years, I decided to go back to school and leave the legal world behind. I was sick of the greed which the legal field heavily promoted and the rudeness of many of the other employees who worked in the field.
The last job I held in the field was as an office manager, I took the memory of the first office manager I worked with and resolved to be less of a sour puss. Every single employee under me performed well, as did my boss who hung on to me for dear life. By the time I resigned I was mentally exhausted. I can honestly say that it takes a lot of mental stamina to work in the field, something I ran out of due to excessively long hours and very demanding clients. Today I look at billboards offering big wins and snort. I know what it takes to get those big wins and find the billboards to be obscene. I know just how many people get the big money and who pays.