January 15, 2009

• chugga chugga

  Work:
  
  One of the people on my team is taking six months off, so her work was being divvied up amongst the rest of us. I decided to take on two of the areas that she covers, one of them being our web browser and the other being something that we call Project Awesome internally, which isn't all that particularly awesome. I thought that was a good amount of work to add to my plate, and figured I could handle the added load.
  
  Today, however, my manager came in and asked if I would be willing to take on an additional area. I asked what it was. Apparently the deal flow with the company that makes those ubiquitous white MP3 players and touch screen phones is so heavy that the guy who manages that relationship can't do it by himself. This is definitely true, because he has had to work on all of his vacations, and works longer and crazier hours than the rest of us. So they decided that it should be split two ways, and I would be the second way.
  
  After some hesitation and discussion with various people in the department, I agreed to take it on -- I decided it was a good move, on balance, and I don't think it's a good idea to turn down work unless there is some compelling reason to do so, especially in this economy. There are a lot of pros: the deals are very complex and intellectually challenging; the internal business people are good to work with; the deals are high profile enough that you get valuable contacts within the company; there is a lot of original legal drafting involved; I would get really valuable lawyering experience and learn a lot; managing this kind of relationship well helps when it's bonus or promotion time... And there's the fact that it's a high-profile, high-publicity relationship, so if you care about media attention or meeting famous people (which I don't), then there's that, as well.
  
  There are cons, though. Apparently, some of the people can be difficult to work with, and the negotiations can be agonizing. The deals are high-pressure with short time constraints, leading to unpredictable and sometimes brutal hours. Having negotiations between two heavyweight companies can mean that the poor lawyers just get tossed around in the middle. These are the reasons why I don't work at a law firm, and they are some of the main cons about being put on deals like these.
  
  I think I did the right thing, job-wise, in taking it on, but I'm a bit nervous for my personal life and sanity. Even if the workload is manageable, I really don't like unpredictability and feeling like I am not the owner and manager of my life, and that's why I was not meant for law firm life. I'm hoping that this new set of deals won't be too big of a step back in that direction, and that I'll get all of the positives out of this, with as few of the negatives as possible. Wish me luck in learning a lot without having to give up too much of my autonomy.
  
  [Edit on 16 Jan 2009: The more I talk to people and find out about this, the more nervous I get, and the less hopeful I am that my life won't turn into lots of late nights and weekends of time-sensitive drafting and editing. Sigh.]
  
  Personal:
  
  My parents know about Superman (as do a few of my coworkers). My mom asked me on the phone over the weekend, and I 'fessed up, and she had some really odd follow-up questions ("How does he feel about Chinese people? Why isn't he married? Have you talked about marriage with him? Do you have to manage his life for him, or can he do it himself? Does he have other interests and friends?" -- some of these are based on past failures, but some are based on her own fixations), but I think she is trying to keep an open mind. My parents are very critical of the guys I date, in general, having only really approved of FX and 2FX. What makes things particularly odd in this situation is that Superman shares the same ethnicity and first name as one of my sister's exes, and I think my parents are having trouble separating the two in their minds -- that failed relationship taints this one, just by power of association.
  
  My dad is in love with Superman's dog. My dad has a special fondness for dogs (as do I), and knowing this, I told Superman to bring his dog to my parents' place when 10 of us went there for dinner. Superman was hesitant to do so, as his dog dislikes car rides, and is rather energetic and boisterous. He brought the dog, however, and my dad fell in love. Every conversation my parents and I have had since then has at some point gone back to the dog. Even as my mom was expressing slight reservations about how things would go between me and Superman, my dad was running around in the background, yelling that he loves the dog. I think that my parents will warm up to the idea once they realize that the things they objected to with my sister's ex are not true for Superman, and that Superman is actually sort of like an improved hybrid of FX and 2FX, assuming that they actually give him a chance.
  
  Superman will be coming to a family wedding in a month, so we'll see how he fares. On a side note, FX is the only boyfriend who has ever met my extended family while we were dating. 2FX met some of them after we had broken up, but never while we were together. Interesting fact. Or maybe not so interesting.
  
  General:
  
  I'm continuing to find my niche here, learning how to do my job, getting to know my friends and coworkers better, settling into a comfortable state of bliss with Superman, but I am starting to have a different kind of struggle. I have always been afraid of routine and repetition. I worry that I'm going to settle into some sort of rut from which I will never again emerge. What if I wake up five or ten years from now and realize that nothing has changed in a long time, and nothing will ever change? Am I ready for that kind of sameness? I feel like I'm having to finally grow up for the first time (I was only faking it before), and I'm not sure I'm really comfortable doing that yet. I've been running my life, holding down a job, paying rent and bills, and being fairly responsible for years now, but this is the first time that the future stretches more than a year or two ahead of me, and that scares me. I'm not sure I'm ready to think of life that way. And yet, now that I'm back in the States, and people are married and having kids, buying houses and investing their money, I feel like I'm supposed to be doing some of those things, as well, and it's really hard to give up the kind of life I used to live for the kind of life I should probably live from here on out.
  
  I sound like a whiny Peter Pan. Sorry. It's just going to take a while for me to get used to the idea that maybe my life will be smoother and contented, rather than rocky and exciting. Maybe I won't go out there and change the world and do great things, and maybe my life will only matter on a smaller scale to fewer people. It's hard to give up the blithe arrogance of youth, isn't it?

  • 12:27 am
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