Pride and Prejudice

"Here you've put me in a tough situation. I can't honestly decide whether to say 'duh,' 'uh, doy' or a very sarcastic 'oh really?'" -- Dr. Perry Cox, Scrubs

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I like neither being a lawyer nor looking for employment as one. So, I'm considering whether I should take a new tack with life and just give up on the entire concept.

Yes, that's what I said. Give up.

I went on a couple of interviews with temporary legal placement firms last week (a necessary step before they're willing to send you out on jobs to their clients, probably to weed out any of the obvious lunatics or office supply thieves). In both interviews, I very genuinely told the recruiters that I would work as a temp forever if I could. Then, yesterday, I was on the bus into the city to see Eclipse with my friend and I realized...I probably could. I decided I needed to give this radical notion some thought, which is what brings me to the computer today to write this here post to question my assumptions and challenge them with realities. To wit:

Assumption: I cannot afford to temp forever.
Reality: Since I started temping, I have paid off an enormous credit card bill and have more money in the bank than ever before. When I was a permanent employee at a law firm, not only did I not pay down my credit card debt, I added to it with purchases that I needed to keep up with the other associates or to console myself for working at a hateful job.

Assumption: I will die from lack of health insurance.
Reality: Many temp agencies offer health insurance. The rules of getting on the plans can be Byzantine, but there is also the option of getting an individual policy through an insurance provider. This is not cheap, but it would stave off the possibility of going bankrupt if I have an accident or get really ill. Frankly, I hardly ever go to the doctor anyway, so the most important thing is for me to have a hedge against catastrophe.

Assumption: People will think less of me if I forsake the path of a permanent career at a firm or in-house for the flighty and unpredictable world of temping.
Reality: Some people probably will, but those people are assholes. One thing I have noticed (with the aid of various self-help books) is that when people say, e.g., "Everyone will judge me harshly for leaving the world of permanent employment to become a temp," the "everyone" in that sentence is usually a bunch of jerks. My real friends may or may not understand the decision, but they'll be supportive. I mean, I didn't understand it when my friend decided she wanted to have a baby (life ruining!), but if that's what she wants for herself, then that's what I want for her.

Assumption: If I commit to temping, I won't be able to take back the choice later and pursue a permanent job.
Reality: That one might be true. This is really the main sticking point. I hate closing off options, which is one of the reasons I went to law school in the first place (the utter wrongness of that decision should propel me into making all kinds of door-closing commitments, but it doesn't).

Basically, I like temping because it's flexible, I have unlimited (though unpaid) vacation time, and I don't have to pretend to give a shit about my job after I go home for the day. I also don't have to deal with the politics of an organization, which was always a very weak point for me in my career at various law firms. Besides that, it makes my short attention span into a virtue. I look like a little bit of a job hopper on my resume because (1) I am and (2) I get bored being in the same place doing the same thing with the same people day after day after day. Temping gigs last a few months and then you're on to the next thing.

Ever since I got the no-offer after my 2L summer, I feel like I've been on the back foot in the job search. The no-offer led me to take a clerkship that was beneath me, which led to a law firm that was a step up but still beneath me, and then that led to the law firm I probably should have been at in the first place (from which I was laid off). It took three years of toil to get to dig myself out of a hole I shouldn't have been in to begin with. Now I find myself in a similar situation, and I've spent a year of my life already trying to dig myself out of this hole without success. I don't care to waste another two years just to get myself back to where I was in 2009, especially since I didn't even like where I was in 2009 to begin with. Maybe the no-offer situation way back in 2004 just soured me on the whole prospect of big firm life or maybe I wouldn't have liked it anyway, but it seems foolish to me to spend another two years (or more, or less) trying to get back to doing something I don't even like. This is especially true since most of the permanent employers who want to interview me have fundamental flaws that make me loath to pursue employment with them. One I spoke to last week has interesting-sounding work, but it would involve a hellish multi-hour-each-way commute. The work would probably position me ideally for a great in-house gig in a few years, but I don't even want to be practicing law in a few years, so, frankly my dears, who gives a damn? Not me (and not Rhett Butler either). Another one is a great law firm likely with great work, but it's in Tampa. Tampa is, I'm sure, a fine city, but I don't know a single person there (scratch that -- I know one person, but she was my frenemy in high school and not someone I'm really looking to strike up a friendship with in my 30s) and I suspect its airport has fewer direct international flights than, say, JFK or EWR.

Meanwhile, I've got a job in a city I want to be in paying me enough money and giving me enough flexibility that in the past year, I was able to travel to Peru, Guatemala and Russia while still paying off the aforementioned heinous credit card debt. So, why not just embrace it and ride this shit out as long as I can?

The struggle is ultimately a battle between the person I want to be and the person I think I should be (I think I stole this line from Bella Swan). I think I should be an associate at a major law firm, working toward being either a partner or an in-house counsel. I want to be someone who gets to dabble in the law (a field I find I enjoy when the fun isn't being sucked out of it by some nightmare partner) and also gets to have a life not connected to the umbilical Blackberry cord. I'm fine with working 12 hours a day, but when I'm having my me time, either here or abroad, that's my fucking me time, and I don't want to hear jack shit about work. So, will I allow my life choices to be made based on pride and prejudice (the law firm route) or on what I really want (something else)?

I haven't completely committed yet, but I think it's obvious which way I'm leaning.