Narrow Escape
As a summer associate, I think conference calls are generally the bane of my existence. fn1. They involve me getting called into some partner's office with one or two other associates and sitting there, pad of paper in my lap and pen in hand, trying to look interested in what is being said by a bunch of nameless, faceless people whose voices blare scratchily from the phone.
The problem is that in a vast majority of cases, I have no what is being discussed. I don't have the general background in either law or business necessary to understand the terminology and acronyms. I don't know about specific deal in question, so I don't understand the situation or have any clue about the background.
So attending a conference call basically consists of me hearing people I don't know talk about subject matter I don't understand relating to a deal I've never heard of. Not really the most scintillating thing in the world. Yet I have to look engaged and pretend that I have some clue what is being said, rather than staring at the deal toys lining the partner's office and counting how many bound deal sets the partner has on his shelf.
This morning, I had to sit through one conference call. It was first thing, so I gulped down a banana for some temporary energy and was forced to leave my muffin for a later time so I wouldn't miss the call. This afternoon, I had another call scheduled, which I wasn't anticipating with glee. However, it got postponed, as it devolved into a discussion of issues not relevant to me and the associate who was supposed to be involved. So I made a narrow escape from conference call purgatory, at least for the time being.
1. As an associate, conference calls are generally great. They may create some work for you, but they're thirty minutes or an hour of solid billable time that you didn't really have to work for. You just sit there and the call happens to you. As you become more senior, you may have to do more than take notes during a call, but it's still a quick and easy way to build up billable hours.
The problem is that in a vast majority of cases, I have no what is being discussed. I don't have the general background in either law or business necessary to understand the terminology and acronyms. I don't know about specific deal in question, so I don't understand the situation or have any clue about the background.
So attending a conference call basically consists of me hearing people I don't know talk about subject matter I don't understand relating to a deal I've never heard of. Not really the most scintillating thing in the world. Yet I have to look engaged and pretend that I have some clue what is being said, rather than staring at the deal toys lining the partner's office and counting how many bound deal sets the partner has on his shelf.
This morning, I had to sit through one conference call. It was first thing, so I gulped down a banana for some temporary energy and was forced to leave my muffin for a later time so I wouldn't miss the call. This afternoon, I had another call scheduled, which I wasn't anticipating with glee. However, it got postponed, as it devolved into a discussion of issues not relevant to me and the associate who was supposed to be involved. So I made a narrow escape from conference call purgatory, at least for the time being.
1. As an associate, conference calls are generally great. They may create some work for you, but they're thirty minutes or an hour of solid billable time that you didn't really have to work for. You just sit there and the call happens to you. As you become more senior, you may have to do more than take notes during a call, but it's still a quick and easy way to build up billable hours.
posted by N at 2:39 PM
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