Reasonable or Another Example of Entitlement Behavior?

So I saw this Craig's List ad today:

Seeking part time attorney's position with daycare allowance (NYC)
Date: 2011-04-16, 2:09PM EDT
Reply to: job-mcxbf-2329006269@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

I am a 33 year old married female attorney with a one year old daughter who would need to come with me to any office I work at. I had had this arrangement at my previous office however, my former boss passed away last year. She was not a bother and I took care of her myself throughout appearances and even during depositions!.....I would additionally request that any employer reading this ad keep an open mind and that things are not nearly as difficult as they may appear to be. I should know, I was living this scenario personally!

I have been admitted to the NYS bar for the past 8 years; have also been admitted to all Four District Courts, the 2nd Circuit and the United States Supreme Court. I have performed various levels of trial, and and covered numerous conferences on trips/slips and falls, auto accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, and the like. I have jury picked in 4 out of 5 boroughs, and have additionally performed several bench trials.

I can work from the most basic pleading complete through depositions, subpoenas and trial preparation. As I know this market is not this best, at a FULL time position I would request 60K but for approximately 40 hours a week I am herein requesting 50K. I have references and of course a CV upon any request! I am looking to work in the Manhattan/Bronx/Downtown Brooklyn/or LIC areas in particular.

SERIOUS REPLIES ONLY! AND PLEASE, NO RECRUITERS!

* Location: NYC
* Telecommuting is ok.
* This is a part-time job.
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 2329006269

We're not simply talking about some payment for a maid or daycare center or time to drop a child off; this person is making demands to bring a 1 year old to the office. A few facts may need mention.

1. The legal field is notoriously unfriendly to small children. There are client meetings, court dates, depositions that are transcribed by people who are paid huge hourly amounts, etc. You have demanding bosses making you work very long hours. Part-time in law land is full-time everywhere else.

2. Many law offices are in buildings where other professionals have offices. Unless you are a very big, rich firm you will not have multiple floors or even one floor that is all yours.

3. If you are surrounded by other working people, there are inevitable noise complaints. Everyone is expected to keep noise to a minimum and screaming would be noticed.

See, where this seems a tad unrealistic & would rub me the wrong way as an employer? I don't know you. I don't know what type of parent you are or anything about your work ethic.

I presume this other boss may have worked with this woman for years and knew if she was capable of doing the job, how her parenting skills are, if she was a reliable worker, demanded childfree employees to accommodate her, etc.

Now I think it would be great if employers provided on-site daycare for employees or at least a space for this small kid that would not mean leaving her in the office during client meetings or expecting the whole office to play babysitter while this mother is in court. If she takes this baby to court, I have to wonder what the judge & court personnel say. Maybe this kid's a local celebrity but for all I know, it could piss off some judge who's trying to dispose of cases to hear a screaming baby in his/her courtroom. If there's anything you don't do, it's make a judge mad at you when you have to go before him/her in court.

But that's not the world we live in. Most law firms won't even give you flexibility in hours like the one I worked at where parents could leave at 4 so they could pick up their kids from school. My nephew is almost a year old & I can't see my sister demanding some employer to let her bring him to work. I've also never met a baby that was silent through a whole work day or never gets grumpy, cranky, bored, etc. without letting you know it by screaming bloody murder.

I say if you want to be a lawyer & bring your child to work, you should consider becoming a solo so you can work at home unless you can pay for a quality daycare center, leave your child with a babysitter or find a workplace that has an on-site daycare center. Little kids do not belong in an office setting (unless maybe your product is marketed to them & there are no confidentiality laws involved) and I think have more potential to be a hassle than a dog or a cat. Animals will at least kill insects, attack intruders, warn you of gas leaks and do other things little kids won't.

Not to mention how the child would feel. Grown ups wouldn't even want to be in a law office for 8 hours, forget 10 or 12 per day if they weren't getting paid for it. Doing it to a small child may as well be child abuse. Law offices don't have toys, games, books or other age appropriate fare for 1 year olds.

Oh, and fairness to co-workers anyone? Some of us don't want to be pestered about having kids or demanded to worship at the altar of your child. We also don't want to hear about the details of little Johnny's diaper mess or his feeding schedule. How does anyone know you aren't the type of mother childfree people hate (basically, those who expect everyone to fawn all over their kid or to get a metal of honor for breeding)? Not to mention seeing a baby brings out the evangelizing from parents to childfree women on the Church of Baby.

The co-workers probably won't get to say "I don't want that child here!" and get their wish. They could be forced to quit (or hostile work environment if they're being harangued daily about their breeding plans) and then the firm loses talented people who may have been there for years because of one person who can't be bothered with lining up daycare services.

Honestly, this ad just rubs me the wrong way as an employer & based on what I know about the legal field. I don't think most firms would accommodate this & I would never expect an office where no one knew me to do that for me.

Those looking for jobs: how would you feel if an employer told you after hiring you for a job that they had little kids in the office on a daily basis that you'd have to work around? I'd personally be pissed since I don't have kids for a reason & unless the child is related to me or I'm being paid for it, I'm not going to be a babysitter or take on motherly tasks. I would also wonder how much real work got done there & what the landlord, others working around the office, etc. thought of it. Based on this woman's demands, you can't help but wonder if she'd be the type of parent to foist child care duties onto co-workers.

Just goes back to the saying "You breed 'em, you feed 'em." Don't inflict your lifestyle choices on everyone else; be an adult & handle your own responsibilities.

General Musings Part 6

I swear, I seem to rack up links by the truck load. So, now time for more general musings.

So, lawyers you think the medical profession is so great??? Yeah, right.

This makes me nervous for my sister since she's studying to be a nurse. She'd definitely be able to do it since she is much better at socializing than I am. Except I & plenty of family members would be furious if someone attacked her or if some hospital administrator expected her to put up with this kind of thing. If her fiance is anything like my spouse when it comes to messing w/his woman, watch out!

Life lesson: No matter what job or career you have there's always a downside. Even if you love doing something, there will always be something unpleasant to do or just a task you hate doing but intellectually, you know you have to complete it if you want to progress.

There are even downsides in the entertainment field: overzealous gatecrashers/wannabes, temperamental actors, indecisive investors, eccentric directors, etc. Not that I'm calling out anyone in particular, talking about my personal experiences or even complaining, I'm just saying those things are the nature of the business. Should you choose to work in entertainment, you're going to encounter at least some of this sooner or later. Similar unpleasant tasks, personality types, etc. exist everywhere so the only way to avoid it is to become a shut-in.

On to unrealistic expectations. Where do you find those? More often than not, Craig's List!!

Attorney (Temporary) (Nassau)
Date: 2010-08-13, 11:18AM EDT
Reply to: job-x2yzb-1896512307@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

Small firm needs temporary assistance. Mostly litigation. This is a full-time, temporary position for a week to two weeks. There is a possibility of the part-time position becoming full-time, so attorneys available to accept a full-time associate position are preferred. This is a position that is probably most suited to an attorney with 2 to 5 years of quality comercial/business litigation experience, but others will be considered. The compensation range is $15 to $25 per hour, depending on experience.


* Location: Nassau
* Compensation: $15 to $25 per hour.
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 1896512307

This is why attorneys are pissed off about the job market. Document review positions, where you did nothing but sit on your butt looking at a computer screen for hours on end looking for privileged documentation, was paying $35 an hour back when I had that one horrid assignment in 2008. If the assignments weren't located in filthy sweatshops managed by Hitler wannabes, it wouldn't have been a bad gig. Apparently plenty of lawyers racked up hours on these assignments to take months off & could still pay their basic bills (including student loans). The average yearly take home was something in the neighborhood of $50-60K a year, sometimes more depending on how many hours you worked or how many assignments you got.

But consider that part-time in lawyer world is usually full-time everywhere else (40 hours per week). Consider that if you calculate $25 an hour, 40 hours a week for a year, after taking out 25% for taxes you get about $36K a year. $15 an hour on the same formula is less than $22K a year.

AND these people want 2-5 years of experience?!?!?!?! Should they also be Harvard grads who can make their assholes sing & juggle watermelon while cooking a 6 course meal from scratch and putting highlights in a dog's hair? I've been reading John Waters' books lately & I haven't seen Pink Flamingos, but that's where the singing asshole reference comes from.

When I read this, I immediately thought of Susan Smith. This just disgusts me on so many levels, it's not funny. I really hope the comments saying the women in prison would handle this scum are true. I may not want to have kids of my own but that doesn't mean I think they should be suffocated, placed in a car to sink in a river & then have their mother lie to the authorities about what happened. See why it reminded me of the Susan Smith case? It was a particularly huge story in my hometown in NC; after all, SC is hitting pretty close to home. I have nieces & nephews as well as close friends who are parents; even if their kids got on their nerves from time to time, I don't see any of them doing what this woman did.

And you still want to stick w/the notion that God gives you babies?

Just one more reason for me to avoid grocery stores in the city. This doesn't shock me in the least since it's always the poor being taken advantage of. Who's shocked that most of the violations happened in the poorest neighborhoods of the Bronx? How do you propose to correct it? That's the better question.

Well, people I won't be openly nasty to if I meet them. It also proves that I'd probably not be good at being a long-term assistant since I'd eventually want to move myself upward & I must put out some type of energy that says I'll never be happy being someone's permanent assistant since people always want to put me in higher level roles than I might initially ask about.

At least these people know that it's not smart to be nasty to assistants since they can screw your life up. They could write tell-alls, mess in your finances, steal, who knows what else. I think I would definitely take notes on how I saw an assistant being treated since it's the same as watching how your date treats the wait staff in a restaurant. That kind of thing reflects on people's impressions of you & it would not go unnoticed by me considering we all start somewhere.

Life lesson: Smart business people & prospective clients are watching everything you do. If you treat lower level workers like crap, I'm going to see it & likely refuse to deal with you since you've proven to be an asshole. I'll think you're trying to get one over on me, which is so not cool. I'd also make sure anyone I was advising or working with saw the same things & heard my thoughts on that. No one I know likes being duped or dealing w/someone who acts like that.