Careers
How Two Lawyers Managed to Look Busy
Posted Jan 26, 2009, 09:05 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
There are many ways to look busy when work is slow, but only some of them are worthwhile.
There is the ever-popular cyberloafing approach, in which workers stare at their carefully shielded computers with a furrowed brow, trying to look as if they are working when they are actually surfing the Internet, the New York Times reports.
Then there is the less-than-green idea that struck a lawyer at the New York office of an international firm. He wanted others to think he was working late at night, but the office lighting automatically dimmed when he left the room, the New York Times explains. He ended up buying an oscillating fan to trick the motion detectors to keep the lights on.
Another 49-year-old lawyer who was doing structured finance work at a New York law firm opted for a more productive approach. He spent slow days calling clients “in an advisory, nonbillable capacity,” according to the article. “It was a way to show the client that even though things were slow, I’m still looking out for your best interests so that when things come back, you can turn to us as experts,” he told the newspaper.
He also tried looking for work, by trying to market himself to lawyers in the firm’s other practice areas and by calling former clients and old friends and acquaintances. And he volunteered for more pro bono work. “I was busy not making money,” he told the newspaper. “But because I was out there trying to do things for the firm that were valuable in a different way, I thought that might be enough.”
It wasn’t. The lawyer was laid off three weeks ago, according to the Times. There was no word on the fate of the lawyer with the oscillating fan.
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