She wraps hard for the money

Another holiday season spent in retail. Although I vowed that I would never have another retail job upon graduating from college, every time I come back to Madison, TM talks me into helping out at the store, and I can’t say no.

The holidays at the store are a fun time, especially the few days right before Christmas, when people are frantic, frazzled, and desperate to get something — anything. The March of the Men is particularly entertaining, since many men tend to be clueless about what their wives want and, as a result, will take almost anything that we put in their trembling hands. If we offer to wrap the gift, you can just see their face light up with joy. “You’d do that???” And, after seeing our wrap job, they almost all exclaim that their wives will know for a fact that they did not wrap it themselves, but boy, are they glad that they don’t have to do it! It’s really quite endearing and a great reminder of how something as simple as wrapping a box can make someone’s day.

There is a limit to that sentiment, however. I’m delighted to wrap gifts for clueless men, older people, and kids, who seem to think that curling a ribbon with scissors is magic. I take a considerably harsher stand toward women. I’d venture to say that the majority of them are perfectly capable of wrapping their own gifts (it’s one of those special female skills, along with nagging); furthermore, the people who shop at the store are typically able to afford their own wrapping supplies. I might be able to buy the argument that some of them are busy working mothers with no time to wrap gifts at home, but that is rebutted by the fact that they are willing to spend an equal (if not greater) amount of time waiting in line to get their things wrapped. I’m perplexed.

On a happier note, a customer told me that watching me wrap his gift was like watching the State Street graffiti artist create his cosmos/sky/landscapes with spray paint. Win.

 

Perplexed by prestige

This whole 2L interviewing process is so prestige-driven.

I confess that I’ve taken to trolling the TLS forums (much to Billy’s chagrin), and it’s a bit disheartening to see how many people need to know how others are faring with V5, V10, Vwhatever firms (that is, the top 5/10/whatever firms on the Vault list). Those going into public interest law aren’t interviewing yet, so naturally these posts are already skewed, but it seems that it’s Vwhatever or bust, as if working for a Vault firm is the only way to have a fulfilling legal career.

Yes, I admit that I was prestige-driven for a considerable portion of my life. Although school came naturally to me, I got good grades in no small part because I wanted to get into the best college I could get into. When it came time to decide, I chose the school with more prestige over the school where I’d be happier. (Of course, I transferred to an entirely different school altogether, but that was a momentary lapse of judgment that I still regret to a certain degree.) I wanted to get into the best possible grad/law school, and yes, now I want to get hired by the best possible law firm.

With one caveat.

The best possible law firm for me.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with the firm’s Vault ranking. In fact, I did not even consult Vault when choosing the firms with which I wanted to interview. The first time the subject even came up was when one of my good friends asked me what the highest ranking firm was on my bid list. Once I got my first call back interview, that friend was the one to pull up the firm’s Vault page. All the ranking info that I have about it, I got from him.

I suppose that chasing after a position with the most prestigious firm makes sense if private law practice is not your final destination but rather a springboard to other things (politics?). But if you intent to stick with the private sector for most of your life, doesn’t it make more sense to pick a place that best matches you as a person instead of one that the general population (is Vault even representative of the general population?) views as prestigious? Of course, I’m functioning under the assumption that some people actually want to spend their entire life in the private sector and that a good match involves more factors than just rank…

 

Clerkship craze

We recently had a mandatory meeting to discuss our university-funded summer job experiences, and I’m still infuriated several days later.

The meeting I attended was geared specifically toward judicial interns, so, after story time, the conversation predictably turned to judicial clerkships. The moral of the story was that a clerkship is one of the best experiences a recent law school graduate could have, that more people should explore those options, and that a certain professor is working very hard to basically flood the D.C. market with judicial clerks and interns from Georgetown (using those time-tested methods of contacting alumni and asking them to put Georgetown résumés on top of the application stacks).

That doesn’t sound so bad, right? In fact, I’m sure that many of my classmates probably appreciate this professor’s commitment. So what’s my beef with it? Basically, as someone who is desperately trying to break into a legal market to which I have no geographic ties, I’m not terribly fond of the idea of markets being flooded by local law schools. Local law school grads (especially those from the top local school) already have numerous advantages over out-of-towners — for example, the student can attend an interview at any time instead of having to fly in for a day.

Granted, clerkships are somewhat unique as far as a job, and I personally am not interested in a clerkship, but the basic principle is still there. What if a qualified applicant from, oh, anywhere is simply dying to get an internship or a clerkship in D.C. (perhaps because he or she wants to develop ties to the D.C. market), yet the judge rejects him or her simply because of a convenient little arrangement with Georgetown? How is that at all fair? What if I hadn’t gotten an amazing job offer over last winter break in Madison, decided to look for an internship in Boston (which was going to be the target of my job search after winter break)…and was rejected because the Massachusetts judges had a similar arrangement with Harvard, BU, and BC? Why, I’d be livid.

There’s also the problem of having alumni pull strings for current students. Whereas I understand why it might be advantageous to hire someone with local ties (for example, at a firm, a local might use his or her connections to bring in clients), I am utterly perplexed by the notion of alumni networking. The idea seems to be that you should throw someone a bone just because you attended the same school. Huh? What obligation does an alum have to someone he or she does not know? Is he or she to assume that the student is a worthy candidate and deserves special treatment simply by virtue of attending Georgetown? Well,  Georgetown is a great law school; shouldn’t the name speak for itself? For all the alum knows, the student in question could be mediocre, yet he or she might get preference over a better candidate from a different school who has no similar alumni networking opportunity with the employer in question.

Over the course of our job search, we are told to reach out to alumni at our desired places of employment. But I don’t see why “Hi, I’m Evie, and I’m getting my J.D. at Georgetown, like you did n years ago” should be any more effective than “Hi, I’m Evie, I see that you are a leading attorney in historic preservation, and I’m super interested” or “Hi, you got your undergraduate degrees in Art History and French? Me too!” or “Your biography says that in your spare time you like to play laser tag with your kids? I used to work at a laser tag place!?” Not that I would necessarily use those hooks — and certainly not that exact wording — but what is it about having attended the same school that forges a stronger bond than having a shared major, a shared hobby, etc.? What makes your school so special to you that it renders all the people who subsequently attend it special to you as well? Ask me in a few years, I suppose.

Note: I’m not necessarily opposed to networking in general. If someone were looking for a great new employee, asked a friend for leads, and the friend happened to have had an exceptional intern at some point, I don’t see why the friend shouldn’t recommend the intern for the open position. The difference is that the friend is familiar with the intern’s work and knows that he or she is a good employee. This is not so in the case of alumni networking.

But I digress. I realize that the arrangement set forth by the aforementioned professor (along with other kinds of networking) may certainly help those who aren’t necessarily the best and the brightest get good positions. Nor do I purport to be the best and the brightest myself, so I realize that similar arrangements could help me as well. Still, something about the whole idea doesn’t sit right with me.

Of course, I might be singing a different tune if I find myself unemployed…but I’ll cross that bridge once I get to it.

 

Goodbye, work; hello, bike!

My summer internship is finally coming to an end, 11 weeks later. It’s been a great experience, and I feel truly lucky to have had this opportunity. Of course, we girls couldn’t leave without having a little photo op.

At the entrance to the courtroom.

On my way home, I saw a small brown object crossing the sidewalk right in front of me. At first I thought it was a clot of hair. But wait, could it have been an animal? So I took a closer look, and sure enough, it was a tiny little creature with a tail about twice the length of its body. Adorable!

Is this...a mouse?

Finally, my last day at work seemed like the perfect time to follow through with the plan that my father and I had been hatching all summer. In a nutshell, my father can’t stand the idea of me on anything other than a proper bike — which, in his opinion, is a road bike. He was not terribly pleased when I brought the old vintage Motobécane frame home and, in an attempt to get me to see the light, offered to subsidize the cost of a road bike. Hey, I’m not going to say no! I am by no means a hardcore cyclist, but I have been going on reasonably long rides lately, 30 miles being the average, with an occasional 50-miler thrown in. My old Schwinn hybrid simply wasn’t cutting it for me anymore, and both the BuB and the Motobécane are strictly city bikes. To top it all off, there was a sale at Willy Bikes…And so, there was a new addition to my happy little bike family: the Scott Speedster S50.

Scott Speedster S50 in our backyard.

The yet-unnamed Speedster is definitely a step up above my old Schwinn but not so fancy that my dilletantish self would feel silly. Still, I have a feeling that it’s going to push me outside my comfort zone and encourage me to go on rides that get progressively longer and faster. I can’t wait to take it for a spin on the D.C. trails!

 

Hello, Hermès!

Gasp. I took a big step forward today and decided to wear my inherited Hermès scarf, which went well with my vintage-style Kenzie shoes. Of course, that necessitated a picture to commemorate the occasion — with Carmen, naturally. Claire had the brilliant idea of having the brick house as the backdrop, which worked out quite nicely. Also, I think Claire now has a teeny crush on Carmen. Can I convert her to the biking lifestyle???

Can't see the scarf or the shoes, but I assure you, they are there in all their glory.

In other news, Natalie and I had a “Woohoo!” moment this afternoon when the Chief told us that we were, in a nutshell, pretty fabulous. I spent the past three weeks doubting my abilities, but apparently I had nothing to worry about: the boss is pleased.

 

Yesterday, when I was young…

My mom called my grandma today, and, apparently, my grandma is replacing the windows in her apartment. Thank goodness, she hired people to do that, although I wouldn’t put it past her to give it a whirl on her own. She sounded so happy that the windows in her incredibly old building are now nice and new and clean. But behold her craziness: when they were working on the windows in the bedrooms, she had to sleep in the living room. The living room has a couch, which converts to a large-ish bed. Well, grandma couldn’t unfold the couch properly, so she decided to sleep on it the way it was…which, of course, was too short…so, in order to be able to stretch out her legs, she pulled up a chair and slept like that with no problems the following morning. This is an 85-year-old woman we’re talking about here. She’s pretty sweet shit.

Speaking of old women, Wednesday is senior discount day at one of my jobs. There’s this cute old lady who comes by on a regular basis, so of course, I give her the discount and then strike up a conversation that goes something like:

Me: Wednesday is the one day when it’s okay to admit that you’re over 55.
Cute old lady: Well, I hit the 80 year mark this January.
Me: *jaw drops* Uhh…can I see a driver’s license for that?
Cute old lady: I don’t drive…I still use a horse and buggy.
Me: I honestly thought you were in your early 60s.
Cute old lady: Oh, that’s such a nice compliment!
Me: I wasn’t even trying to compliment you…I sincerely believed you were just a tad over 60.
Cute old lady: Nope! You’re so cute…what’s your name?

Throughout the conversation, my eyes were almost filling with tears, out of sheer amazement. Wow. Simply wow. That’s all I can say. I can only hope that when I’m that age, I can look as good and feel as perky as this woman and my grandma.

 

Do you want fries with that?

I’m severely lacking motivation to work on my math paper, so instead, I’ll list some of the stereotypical customers who grace the store with their presence.

The time-waster: Usually they are waiting for someone and have some time to waste, so they decide that it’s a good idea to waste mine as well. These lovely people are generally harmless and enthusiastic, but always full of questions, most of them of the stupid variety. They rarely leave with something more than a card.

The compulsive toucher: They are not satisfied until they have turned over every item in the store to look at the price tag. Even the items that you are clearly not supposed to touch. Ooh, I’m praying that they didn’t eat greasy popcorn beforehand. Which brings me to…

The gluttonous pig: It’s usually popcorn. And when you’ve got textiles in the store, you don’t want greasy fingers anywhere within a mile radius. Plus, popcorn stinks up the place!

The walkie-talkie: After listening to them loudly gab on the phone for a good half-hour, I now know all the intimate details of their life.

The best buddy: Asks a million questions, most of them only marginally, if at all, related to the store, and shares his or her life story, regardless of how curt my responses may be. If you’re in dire need of a friend or a listener, get a dog.

The cutesy-wutsey: “Can I help you?” “Oh, I’m just drooooooling. Oh, isn’t that daaaarling? How can you stand woooooorking here with all these wooooooonderful thiiiiiiings?” All in a baby voice, naively thinking that she is the first person to ask me that.

The Addams Family: Or just their kids. Kids who run. Kids who touch everything. Kids who are left behind by their parents. Kids who cry at the top of their teeny tiny lungs. Kids who make me want to whack then with our expandable (!) Swiffer.

The Josh Groban fanatic: I know all of you post-menopausal women want to sleep with him. So did one of my gay buddies in high school.

The Silver Seasons addict: Yes, I know you think it’s the best thing since sliced bread. So does everyone else who walks through the door. Finding someone who isn’t of the same opinion is a rare and delightful treat.

The desperate man: So very entertaining. His anniversary is today…or even yesterday. He is completely at our mercy, and will agree with our suggestion, no matter what we tell him. His wife will usually come in the next day, either to thank us for helping him pick out such a wonderful gift, or to complain about how her husband doesn’t know her taste after 30 years of marriage.

The girls’ night out: These 40 or 50-something-year-old ladies have almost certainly been drinking beforehand. They loudly express their opinions about everything. They make each other try on all kinds of crazy stuff. They may be a tad annoying, but thank goodness, they never walk away empty-handed, because all in all, they are the textbook example of peer pressure. God bless ‘em, if only because they make me crave a good strong martini.

And, finally, my personal favorite…

“How do you get to the restaurant upstairs???” I can spot these people a mile away. They have an incredibly disoriented look about them and, having inevitably failed to notice the glass staircase at the end of the building, usually walk through several times before turning to me, wild-eyed and incapable of uttering more than one word, “Fresco???”

Right through this door, through the gallery all the way to the other end of the building, and up to the third floor. And if you’re fat, don’t take the elevator. The stairs are good for you.

 

Crash and freeze.

A sad story from work:

This woman comes in with her sister and their kids. She spends quite a bit of time looking around, asking me for my advice, and ends up spending a decent chunk of money. Our daily totals are looking much better, and the customer seems thrilled as the heads for the door. Life is good. Excellent time for Hannah and me to resume our gossip.

And then we hear a crash. A horrible crash. Glass.

Not the mosaic bowl, please don’t let it be the $1000 mosaic bowl. Thank goodness, it’s “only” the $330 piece of glass from Canada, affectionately known as the “toadstool.” Shattered into about 20 pieces and quite a bit of that fine glass dust. Lovely.

The bottom line? She pays (amazingly, without trying to argue her way out of it), and what do I end up taking home tonight? The shattered pieces of the toadstool in hopes of using them for one art project or another…while conveniently forgetting my paycheck and the gift that I bought for Cyrielle earlier in the day. My priorities are all wrong. All wrong.