Life is Good

I wish I could bring Kira to work with me. I’d have to bring her cushy bed, so she could sleep on the floor near me, without hurting her boney body. Daily would have to come, too, because he is my familiar and he must be with me always. He would need his litter box, of course. And I should not leave Wolfie out of the equation, so he would have to come, too. I’d need a big bowl of water for them, because desicated pets are never a good thing. I'd need some treats and a toy or two. A nice selection of teas for me and a good kettle to boil the water. Music, you have to have good music when you work. A comfy cosy afghan for when it gets too cold.

Well, heck, I’d need the truck to bring all this stuff in! Why can’t I just work from home every day? My work-at-home day is my very favorite day. I dress any old way. I make a pot of tea and bring it to the computer. I play music at any volume I wish. I open the window shades and have a nice view of the back yard while I work. The cats climb on the desk to look out the window or on the extra chair to sleep. I have fresh vegetables in the fridge for a much healthier lunch than I get at the office.

I notice that I get so much more work done when I work from home. No one comes to my office to bother me. I get fewer calls. One of the days during the week before I went to Houston, I had a specific project I needed to finish, a list of issues in my new case. I figured it would take me 30 minutes to an hour to get it done. So I started. Just as I was getting into the swing of it, I got a phone call about another case with what was supposed to be a quick question. I thought I could stop everything and get the answer, but while I was looking on line for the documents that would give me the answer, an e-mail popped up that required my immediate attention, so I dropped everything to take care of that, at which point there was a knock at my door…my supervisor needed something, and supervisors take precedence. This went on all day, until, by the end of the day, I had at least 8 things to do and nothing had been completed. I have not even mentioned the friends who stopped by to chat … some of them have more difficulty leaving than others. Anyway, by 4:30, I realized that my heightened state of frustration would keep me from accomplishing anything. So I just left everything undone on my desk and went home. The next morning, I got up early and got into the office by 6:30 a.m. I managed to finish the issues list by 7:00. Then I turned to each of the other items and finished them one by one. Fate was with me and I had no major interruptions to prevent me from doing the work. By the end of the day I managed to finish everything that had piled up the previous day, and got ahead of the eight-ball by writing up my case profiles (a tedious job we have to do every week or two) drafting discovery in another case, organizing my files, and putting everything in order for my week away from the office. Dang, that felt good! My desk was so clean it looked like I had no work to do. Hmmm, better rethink that!

As a result of accomplishing all that work, I didn’t give a thought to any of my cases while I was in Houston. Big mistake. I am now swamped. Forget having completed all that stuff before I left. The work piled up again. But, I really can't complain. I do love being a litigator. It is all I ever wanted to do. What’s nice about it is that no case is ever quite the same. Each one is fresh. Sure, you do the usual discovery and motions and briefs, but the details are always different. So much of this can be done from home that I do well away from the office.

And that brings me full circle to the idea of being at home, working, with the cats and Kira nearby, and a nice cup of tea. Which is what I am doing now...well, WAS doing before I interrupted myself to write this post. Now, back to work. Life is good.