CLG v The Company (2009)

Last week I was called back into the office. Even though I had been told that I wouldn't have to work my notice, the MD changed her mind and told me I had to come in, seeing as how they were paying me anyway. In response, I kicked up a bit of a fuss in my official redundancy meeting on Friday, and am now back at home, being paid for a month even though my notice period is only a week, with quite a few extras, and flowers and chocolates to boot. While I wouldn't recommend redundancy to anyone, if its going to happen, this has got to be the way to do it!

In other news, this morning I got a phone call inviting me to an interview for a job that ticks all the right boxes (pays enough, pupillage friendly, saves the world) so I'm now just swotting up on everything I can about the organisation and the job in preparation and allowing myself to hope that somehow I'm going to manage to find a new job before the money runs out.

Jumping Ship

I've been wondering recently whether the company I work for/job I do is really the right place for me to be. In terms of the "how does this job benefit your legal career?" question, while the answer isn't as obvious as it would be working as a paralegal, I've always known what I would need to say (Understanding of both public and private sector, understanding of client groups, commercial acumen blah blah blah...) But the reality is, I don't think that I am actually gaining or learning anything. In a rival company that is better established, this would probably have been a different story, but I'm with a start-up company made up of a team of "experts" who from what I can tell don't understand anything about organisation and management. They are all ideas people who simply haven't bothered to implement any structure into the company, and talk constantly about how successful they are going to be without doing anything to get them there. When I applied for the job I was given the impression that there would be opportunities for career progression and training and that they invested in their staff. Total bull, I've been with them for 9 months now and there is nothing. I've not had any training, and when I mentioned wanting the opportunity to develop, it was shot down. To top it all, I'm not that sure I'm any good at the job anyway, although without any guidance or feedback (despite constant requests for this) I have no way of knowing. This is all made worse by the sheer unprofessionalism of the senior team.

As people, they are lovely, and I'm glad to have met them and very happy to socialise with them, but at work I am sick of the political vying for control, the whispering, the mood swings and worst of all, the fact that the MD "restructures" every few weeks so line managers change, and responsibility for this that and the other switches hands suddenly without warning, merely based on her mood. I think in PR terms this would be known as "flexible working" but in my terms I'd say it was a pile of crap. Up until recently, I've at least managed to avoid the political games, but recently it looks like someone has dragged me in without telling me, and now I have to find out who's playing on my team and who is against me!

So, with this in mind I've been thinking about finding a new job. But I've also got to find somewhere new to live as my flatmates and I will be parting ways soon, so I was planning on sorting that first. But in the past week or so, The Company was told that it had not been successful in a bid for the Daddy of All Contracts, and so now the office is a battleground between the MD and the Shareholders who are in all likelihood planning to pull our funding. Meaning I need to find a job QUICK and jump ship before it sinks.

All this = STRESS!!!! But on a plus side, I have found a job that I would very much like to be doing instead, so I can at least channel all of this worry and desperation into writing the best application for a job the world has ever seen and pray it all works out for the best.

My First Murderer

The company I work for gets money from the DWP and other Government agencies to run programmes to help tackle worklessness in deprived areas. Technically, it's my job as a Bid Writer to win this money for the company, but everybody in the office tends to do a bit of everything that's going on.

Currently we're doing some work with ex offenders. I'm actually visiting a prison later on in the week with a few colleagues (I'm not sure why we need to do this work wise, but I'm looking forwards to it from an academic point of view... See Foucault in action and all that.). Anyway, at uni I was into the whole rehabilitation not just retribution thing, and I absolutely loved the half modules I did on Criminology and treatment of Offenders.

Rehabilitating offenders is crucial to tackling crime rates, as such a high percentage of reported crime is committed by a small number of repeat offenders. The two largest factors affecting recidivism are Housing and Employment. So it is important that employment opportunities are made available to offenders for them to be able to start afresh in a law abiding life.

In Criminology we studied "Labelling Theory" which was another theory that I absolutely loved. The theory argues that by labelling people as "criminals" or "offenders" we cast them out from society, and make it impossible for them to return to the fold. With this label, they then find themselves conforming to the stereotype put upon them, and will consequently continue to behave as "criminals".

So, controversial and politically sensitive as all this is, that kinda sums up my thoughts about this group of people and how we should treat them: Give them a chance to start afresh and don't throw their history in their face at every corner, or they'll never reform.

AND THEN I MET A MURDERER.

I'm interested in the Criminal Bar. I think I'd prefer Family, but have always considered Criminal, even after i got a 2.2 in my Criminal Law exam in first year. So, meeting murderers is pretty much something I'm going to experience one day as a Barrister. (one day...) But I may have freaked out slightly when I realised I'd just shaken the hand and smiled and had a casual conversation with a murderer. All of my thoughts about negative labelling and giving people a chance to start again went out of my head and I just thought OMG is he dangerous?!

Seconds later all my well intentioned thoughts slowly started to pop back into my head. But I'm still slightly perturbed by my initial wide eyed reaction. Fortunately I wasn't told until he had left the office, so he didn't have to see my wide eyed-ness (that's not really a word is it?...).

Will I always react that way? Is it ok, because the other thoughts came back to me after a few seconds? Am I still the good person I thought I was?

How will I handle a prison full to the brim with Criminals?!

But I am glad to have gotten that experience out of the way and under my belt. I may not have been as calm about it as I would have liked, but now I've met my first murderer (that I'm aware of) I can begin the process of becoming immune to the shock/fear/surprise. To be honest, I've probably met loads in the pub.