Happy New Year from Anonymous Lawyer
Happy new year. At the firm, we’ve decided to open 2021 with some new policies.
Support staff will finally be able to work from home one day a week. We’ve been keeping them in the office up to this point as essential workers, since lots of partners still need someone available to print their emails and FedEx the printouts to them at home to read. We’ve done everything we can to protect them throughout the pandemic — we have a mask they’ve all been sharing, and we locked the bathrooms to avoid any chance of viral spread in there — but we’re finally getting around to responding to a list of demands they emailed in March, and we will, in the spirit of accommodation, let them have their one remote day a week. (In an unrelated move, we will also be cutting their salaries by 20%.)
Speaking of support staff, after a vote of the partnership, we decided support staff will not be permitted to get vaccinated. It’s not because we don’t believe in vaccines — don’t worry, we’ll all be first in line when our lobbying efforts are successful and we’re able to skip ahead of doctors. Rather, it’s because we’ve been desperate for years to find a way to encourage our more senior support staff to make way for cheaper replacements, and this seems like an easy enough way to do it. Get the vaccine, absolutely — it just means you have to quit. Sorry.
Associates are not permitted to be vaccinated before partners. We’ve said before that we do not let an associate’s pre-existing medical conditions affect anything about how poorly we treat them. This should be no exception. Until every partner is vaccinated, no associate, not even the overweight diabetic who went to law school as a third career at age 75, should get one.
Thanks to the lack of commute, we have revised upwards our expectation for hours billed to 176 per associate week. Anything less and the bonus will be affected.
No more virtual backgrounds. We want to make sure your home is nice enough that we know you’re locking yourselves to the job through the magic of golden handcuffs — but also that it isn’t nicer than ours, because associates shouldn’t be showing up the partnership.
As the world returns to normal in 2021, we will be doing random spot checks of associate homes to make sure no one is taking a midday break. Have sufficient snacks available, please.
We suspect people have been purposely catching COVID to take advantage of our generous 72-hour COVID leave policy. The leave will now be triple-unpaid, meaning skip three days and lose pay for nine. This should solve the problem, we expect.
Jeffrey Toobin is officially joining the firm. He will be available to be welcomed on Zoom this Monday from 10-12. We are confident this will go well.
If you are among the staff selected to set off fireworks at our offices to celebrate the New Year tonight, please be careful.
Happy New Year!