Week One on the Fire Brigade
So my first week of work is almost over and things are quite fun and jolly indeed. This is definitely a work hard play hard place. In fact, I'm going to have to work on my "playing hard" skills if I have any hope of keeping up.
We had a big presentation to the client in New York on Wednesday -- all the core folks at all the firms gathered for a day-long Fact Summit, wherein we all shared everything we've learned since January on this matter. As you know, I've switched firms but I am still working on the same giant project. So anyway, I fly up to NY on Monday morning and join my team in a conference room getting ready. Monday night I work until 11 pm, Tuesday night we were there until 1:30. We start our run-through on Tuesday night at 11 -- a collegial affair in which we all sat around watching the powerpoint and marking it up and talking and brainstorming and hashing out the speech. We were first up on the agenda on Wednesday morning, starting at 7:30 a.m. Ironically, my new boss (who shall henceforth be known on this blog as "LB") and I spent part of each prep day at my old firm's NY office coordinating the presentation program. A seamless transition, as they say.
Everything goes swimmingly the next day. About 80 of us were gathered in a large room in The News Building on 42nd Street. It was like old home week. Even though there are so many firms on this case, the work load is intense so we all know each other pretty well. There was a lot of mingling and socializing and chit chat, lots of "hey! How the heck are ya Bob?!" kind of stuff. People seemed genuinely happy to see each other.
Every now and then each firm's group would splinter off and huddle in the hallway. So I would find myself in the my new firm's huddle, everyone talking sotto voce to avoid being heard. I realized that for the first time in my career, I was standing amongst a bunch of tall men in the prime of their professions -- no-one was over 45 and the guys are super fit, triathletes, runners, whatever. These are the men of the fire brigade. The shortest among them is still six feet. (Most of the lawyers at my old firm were either shorter than me or about the same as me, assuming I had no shoes on, which, obviously, was rare.)
These guys, on the other hand, are predominantly of Irish stock. They are big, outspoken energetic gregarious fellows with huge personalities and long limbs. They are big talkers, big gigglers, tons of fun. To say they are animated is an understatement. They push the envelope on everything. They are loyal to each other. They LOVE what they do. They are very good lawyers.
At the end of the day my new colleagues and I retired en masse to an Irish pub (McFadden's Saloon, to be precise) to unwind. We unwound at the Irish pub for a while -- the tall athletic fire brigade rolling up their collective sleeves and diving into successive rounds of Harp and Guinness. Every now and then we fell into "talk like a pirate" day and laid on a brogue just for kicks. People eventually started peeling off to head back to their respective cities (the fire brigade is based all up and down the East Coast, although I am the southern-most member of it). LB and another guy (known henceforth as Little John, not to be confused with Big John, another fire brigade member) and I are left in the semi-quiet of the bar. Big John had left us to go back on the vacation he had interrupted to drop in on the fact summit. LB suddenly announces that we should go stop in at a summer associate dinner party that is being held in the Central Park Zoo. Not only that, but LB decides it is in fact a political imperative that we go and make a showing on behalf of the fire brigade.
So we careen out of McFadden's Saloon and try to get a cab. No cabs. So we chase a bus up Second Avenue for a while and surge onto it, balancing laptops and redwelds and luggage... I mumble something about not having any money for the bus. Little John (who by the way, is 6'2 or something) looks over his shoulder as he runs down the street and says, in true fire brigade fashion - "don't worry! We'll figure it out when we get there!" and LB calls back to me out of the bus "This bus is free! The change thing is busted!" So that worked out well.
Anyway, we make our appearance at the Central Park Zoo dinner. We ate off china and silver on tables set up outside amongst the polar bears. As the sun set we piled into pre-paid cabs and rolled back down to mid-town. LB goes home and Little John and I track down a friend of mine from my old firm who was also in town for the Fact Summit for a night of continued unwinding. It was a long night. Little John kept trying to get a train back to Baltimore but was continually thwarted by such things as a movie being shot between us and the train station, blocking traffic, or temporarily losing his wallet so he couldn't pay the cab, etc. He would leave wherever we were with all his luggage and then show up again half an hour later, sheepishly admitting he had once again failed to make it on board the train. He finally made it out on the 8 am train the next day, I think.
As for me, I took the 12:30 Delta Shuttle after catching only a couple hours of sleep. I came straight home and took a nap. Next week is Chicago on Monday and then I don't know what else.
But I will be the only member of the fire brigade on that trip so presumably I'll get a little more sleep.
posted by Anonymous @ 10:54 AM
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