Desk Rage

I arrived at my desk this morning to find the most bizzarre selection of objects strewn across its surface:

• Three different chocolate bars (Galaxy, Dairy Milk and Sainsburys) all opened but with only a couple of squares eaten (no complaint)
• a £5 note (no complaint there either)
• A book of TS Eliot poetry
• A carrier bag containing what I initially thought were onions, but turned out to be daffodil bulbs.
• A flash gun, case and assorted bits of an old Canon film camera, but no camera.

I work from home, and last night, it appears, my eldest daughter decided to escape the children's party in the lounge by doing her homework in my office. For science she had to compare the properties and ingredients of different types of chocolate. (Why didn't I ever get cool homework like that?) In English she is studying TS Eliot. She is also doing GCSE photography (the camera is in her schoolbag) and Grandma, visiting for the little one's birthday, had given her the bulbs since she is a surprisingly keen gardener for a teenager. Still no idea what the £5 note is about, unless it's payment to me for the use of my desk. Which, to be honest, I think is well deserved. I don't like sharing my space.

"Hotdesking" became popular in the 1990's, as firms started to introduce flexible working time arrangements and discovered that they could save space by having one worker use the desk recently vacated by a part-time colleague. Other workers could be semi-peripatetic, just plopping down at whichever desk happened to be convenient to do whatever they needed to do.

One website which praises hotdesking says "one has no more rights of exclusive ownership to an office desk than one has to a seat on a bus, a restaurant table or a stall in the office toilets". True, but humans are territorial and we like to mark our space. Look at your desk now. Do you have a family photograph somewhere on it? A cute little homily you like? Your special mug? It may belong to the firm, but it's your desk.

Your desk is also somewhere you are guaranteed to have the tools needed to get your job done. You know that your favourite pen and notepad are here. You know that your files are within reach, and where to find everything on the computer. The chair is comfortable and adjusted to the right height, and you know the extention number of the phone and that is has your personal message on the answering service. You need that assurance and comfort in order to do your job properly.

Hotdesking isn't common in the legal profession yet. Personally, I hope it stays that way. Lawyers face enough stress in their day-to-day work without finding daffodil bulbs and camera equipment in their workspace. Although chocolate and money might be a bonus.

LawCare’s free and confidential helpline is available 9-7.30 Monday-Friday, 10-4 weekends, on:
0800 279 6888 (Solicitors, Law Students and Legal Executives in England and Wales)
0800 279 6869 (Solicitors, Advocates and Law Students in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man)
0800 018 4299 (Barristers, Barristers Clerks and Judges in England and Wales)
1800 991801 (Solicitors in the Republic of Ireland)
1800 313145 (Barristers in the Republic of Ireland)

Happy Holidays

It’s the middle of the school holidays, and everyone is away on holiday. My husband and eldest daughter are at a church youth camp. My middle daughter is at Brownie camp. My contact at our printer’s, account manager at the stationer’s, and the director at the treatment centre I am trying to arrange a bed at, are all on holiday. As are half the LawCare volunteers and a good number of the counsellors. It’s all most inconvenient!

Actually, I don’t begrudge them a moment of it. After all, I had a wonderful week at my favourite beachfront hotel on the north coast of Majorca last year, and am looking forward to a peaceful and relaxing stay with friends in Wales next week. Holidays are important. A news programme recently interviewed several people in a luxury resort somewhere about the rising cost of holidaying, given the escalation of fuel and food prices. Would they be forgoing their foreign holidays in future? The overwhelming answer was No. Whatever the cost, a holiday was a priority. One man explained “It’s what I work all year for.”

We regularly get stressed and overworked lawyers calling our helpline who have not had a holiday in several years. We have several pieces of advice with regard to taking holidays:

• Be sure to take your whole holiday entitlement.
• Tell everyone that you are out of the country – backpacking in Belize or somewhere equally incommunicado – even if you are just painting the spare bedroom.
• Screen calls and switch off your mobile. DON’T answer calls from the office.
• Preparation is vital – you won’t relax if you know you’re going to be coming back to a huge pile of work. Assign someone else – or better still, several people – to deal with matters in your absence. Ensure clients know that you are going away, and who they should ask for in your absence.
• Set your office voicemail to answer, but not to take messages, giving a call-back date which is actually a day or two after your return, so that you are not inundated with phone calls the day you come back.
• Switching on your Out of Office Reply on your email can invite spam unless you have a very good spam filter. Instead, set up a forward to a colleague or your secretary, and have that person send a standard reply to all genuine enquiries asking them to contact you on your return.
• Once on holiday, don’t fill every moment. Make sure that for every day you are visiting the sights or enjoying the theme parks you have a day just relaxing round the pool or strolling round the shops. If you insist on trying to pack too much in to your week away you will return to work needing another holiday to get over the first one.

Have a great time!

LawCare’s free and confidential helpline is available 9-7.30 Monday-Friday, 10-4 weekends, on:
0800 279 6888 (Solicitors, Law Students and Legal Executives in England and Wales)
0800 279 6869 (Solicitors, Advocates and Law Students in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man)
0800 018 4299 (Barristers, Barristers Clerks and Judges in England and Wales)
1800 991801 (Solicitors in the Republic of Ireland)
1800 313145 (Barristers in the Republic of Ireland)

Out of Touch

I’ve just been listening to a discussion on the radio about the huge pay gap between ordinary workers, often on minimum wage (£5.73 per hour), and the high-flying bosses of their companies who earn what, to ordinary people, seem like obscene amounts (around £2.5 million per annum in some cases). Apparently several MPs have called for a “High Pay Commission” and it was mentioned that they may go so far as to introduce a national maximum wage.

One caller raised the point that the bosses of these companies – and bankers seem to be the biggest offenders – are completely out of touch with the everyday lives of their workers, in a “let them eat cake” type of way. It goes both ways, however. Those of us who are average have a hard time understanding the challenges of those we might consider “mega-rich”.

Although I come from a middle-class family, and went to University, I am often hard-pushed to feel sympathy for those callers to the helpline who are suffering the effects of the recession to such a degree that they can hardly afford the school fees any longer, may have to do without a new car this year, and might even have to move to a smaller house where the children would have to share bedrooms. Because I have never had a new car (mine are usually at least five years old when I buy them) have never even considered sending my children to private school, and my two youngest have shared a bedroom for many years, these things doesn’t seem like so terrible from where I’m sitting.

But I have come to appreciate that actually, financial trials and tragedies are difficult and painful whatever your starting point; whether you are a FTSE100 CEO having to give up the private helicopter and second home in Monte Carlo, or a factory worker faced with working a short week due to cutbacks and thus unable to take the family to Butlin’s. Losing something which was important to your lifestyle is difficult and upsetting, whatever that thing may be. The legal profession is traditionally a well paid one, with ample financial rewards, but many lawyers are finding that they are struggling even to make enough money for the necessities of life. LawCare is here to provide support and empathy as they face this challenge; but we are also here to help those whose trials are outside our personal fields of reference. Whether you are on minimum or maximum wage, the pain of loss and financial challenge is the same, and we are here to offer non-judgmental support and advice.

LawCare’s free and confidential helpline is available 9-7.30 Monday-Friday, 10-4 weekends, on:
0800 279 6888 (Solicitors, Law Students and Legal Executives in England and Wales)
0800 279 6869 (Solicitors, Advocates and Law Students in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man)
0800 018 4299 (Barristers, Clerks and Judges in England and Wales)
1800 991801 (Solicitors in the Republic of Ireland)
1800 303145 (Barristers in the Republic of Ireland)

Obamacare and LawCare

I’m feeling a little riled at the moment, and it’s the Americans again. President Obama has finally told Americans that since every civilised country provides healthcare for its citizens as a basic human right, it is high times the USA had a system approximating the NHS. So what happens?

The greedy, profiteering health insurance companies get the general population fired up against this “evil” idea with warnings that granny will be told to potter off quietly when her times comes, and there will be a two-year wait for essential operations. What is worse, they use the NHS to illustrate how bad “socialised healthcare” can be by dragging in some disaffected MP and unsuspecting member of the British public, and telling outright lies about how the NHS puts a value of £15,000 on six months of life. (In reality, this is the maximum the NHS will pay for additional experimental treatment predicted to prolong life by six months, but this is in addition to the regular, non-experimental kind.)

Twelve years ago my sister felt some stiffness in her elbow, so she went to her GP who thought it was arthritis. She wasn't convinced, so she went to see a different doctor who referred her to an oncologist. She had several tests and it was discovered that she had a bone cancer called Osteosarcoma. The survival rate for the type she had is 5%.

She was offered an immediate amputation of the arm, but she is a talented musician and wanted to keep the arm if at all possible. So she went to see a top specialist who thought he could remove the bone and give her a titanium prosthesis instead so she could keep her arm. But there was a risk that the two-week delay while the prosthesis was made could allow the cancer to spread.She decided to go for this anyway, and two weeks after her diagnosis she had the bone removed from shoulder to wrist, and the titanium bone put in. It was a very long operation, and she was in hospital for some time afterwards for ongoing treatment.

But it was a total success, she is still playing the piano and flute and has full control of the arm, although it is a little weaker than the other one. Every year she goes back to the hospital for further tests, just to keep an eye on everything and make sure the cancer hasn't spread.Had my sister been American she would have had the amputation. I can’t imagine any insurance company agreeing to a titanium (read: precious metal, very expensive) prosthesis, when it was a risky procedure and a simple and cheap amputation would have been safer. Not only that, but if she was privately insured she would have had to pay a large deductible. And if she didn’t have insurance, she would have had a choice of death or bankruptcy.

Unfortunately it is still true that, as wonderful as the NHS is (and I do believe that it is), there are some things you still have to pay for. It is difficult to get treatment for addiction on the NHS because NICE guidelines say that containment or control are better than cure. There can also be a long waiting list for counselling on the NHS, so we often have to ask other charitable bodies for funding for people. We also have a very small Welfare Fund, which we use sparingly, if help cannot be obtained from any other source. We agree with President Obama – as good health as can be achieved is everyone’s basic right.

LawCare’s free and confidential helpline is available 9-7.30 Monday-Friday, 10-4 weekends, on:
0800 279 6888 (Solicitors, Law Students and Legal Executives in England and Wales)
0800 279 6869 (Solicitors, Advocates and Law Students in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man)
0800 018 4299 (Barristers, Clerks and Judges in England and Wales)
1800 991801 (Solicitors in the Republic of Ireland)

Why I love Blackberries

Last week I wrote an article based on the furore caused by an email from a partner at a large London firm who suggested that lawyers should be available to contact by email even when they are away on holiday. In the article I lamented the fact that Blackberries now make it possible for us to access and respond to our email from anywhere, which means that many lawyers are finding themselves effectively on call at times which were usually relatively restful – the commute, their lunch hour, dinner with friends and, yes, whilst backpacking in Nepal.

I don’t own a Blackberry – funds don’t permit – but I have recently changed my opinion of them. They can be very useful from the point of view of the person receiving an email message sent from “my wireless Blackberry mobile”, in that they are quite fiddly and difficult to use, so messages tend to be very short and to the point.

I recently responded to a lengthy email from the director of one of the treatment centres on LawCare’s database who wanted to have an advertisement for their unit in LawCare News, and to have their services promoted by LawCare in other ways. This was not something it was appropriate for us to do, but knowing that he would not be happy at the decision, I wrote an equally lengthy and detailed email in response, explaining exactly why we could not oblige. I fully expected a long-winded response which would be at best pleading, at worst belligerent and demanding, and go into considerable argument explaining exactly why every single alcoholic calling the LawCare helpline should be given details of one particular treatment centre. But I had the good fortune that he responded using his Blackberry, and wrote simply “OK”.

Looking back through my email I realise that there are several where the responses have been short and to the point - “Yes”, “No”, “Thanks” and “August” - and they were all sent using a Blackberry or similar device. I rather like such decisive brevity, and I can’t help but think how much easier it must have been for the lawyers in question just to dash off a quick reply from the back of a taxi than to spend valuable office time composing a long email which would, ultimately, say the same thing.

Perhaps I need to add a codicil to my article decrying the use of Blackberries when on holiday. I recognise that they can save time and streamline the working day, and anything which helps lawyers work more efficiently and free up time is valuable. But for goodness’ sake, remember that it has an “off” switch.

LawCare’s free and confidential helpline is available 9-7.30 Monday-Friday, 10-4 weekends, on:
0800 279 6888 (Solicitors, Law Students and Legal Executives in England and Wales)
0800 279 6869 (Solicitors, Advocates and Law Students in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man)
0800 018 4299 (Barristers, Clerks and Judges in England and Wales)
1800 991801 (Solicitors in the Republic of Ireland)

Taking a Gamble

I can smugly say that I don't gamble. Well, not much. I have bought a raffle ticket as part of the entry requirement to a school fete on occasion, and once I won a bottle of champagne which I then generously donated back to the school, since I don’t drink alcohol. I'd like to think that they re-raffled it, but I suspect that there was, in fact, some unnatural merriment in the staff room on the last day of term.

My other foray into gambling came in the latter part of last year. The jackpot to the Euro Lottery was up to £92 million and finding myself in the Post Office with a pound in my pocket, I decided to invest in the right to dream for a day, and I bought a ticket.In my 24 hours of planning exactly how to spend such a huge sum, I discovered some interesting truths about myself. For example:

• However rich I was, there is no way I would ever have any plastic surgery.
• Similarly, I would never send my children to private schools. Not because I think they are elitist and out-of-touch with the real world (much) but because my children are happy and doing very well at the schools they attend now, and those schools are within easy walking distance.
• I am nicer than I thought - the plans which most excited me were those involving anonymously paying off mortgages or giving large cash gifts to friends and deserving causes.
• However much money I had, I would never buy a brand new car. Probably a car that's one or two years old (as opposed to the twelve-year-old car I just scrapped), but never something straight from the production line. I just couldn't face seeing it depreciate by half its value as I drove it off the forecourt.
• There are no houses currently for sale in my area - even with asking prices of over £1 million - which I like well enough to tempt me to leave the home I currently live in.

What I really learned about myself, then, is that I don't actually want or need £92 million. I think discovering that was well worth £1. The punchline to this is that I won. I got four numbers out of the six, and won £6.10. So despite a considerable return on my investment for my foray into gambling, I shan't be doing that again. Hubby Dearest (who is an accountant, and thus genius) says that the National Lottery is "a tax on people who are bad at maths". Anyway, I promise faithfully never to gamble again (unless it's the only way to get into the fete), however much I find myself longing to pay off your mortgage.

Apparently, gambling is on the increase due to the recession. Online gambling is one of the few growth industries at the moment, and it seems that many people, finding that their money is earning little interest, are deciding to see whether they can generate income by gambling with it instead. My gamble might have resulted in a 400% profit, but remember that’s the exception. Last year I updated LawCare’s Gambling Information Pack, and it was frightening to see how addictive gambling can be, and what terrible positions people often find themselves in. If you are struggling with this problem, LawCare is here to help.

LawCare’s free and confidential helpline is available 9-7.30 Monday-Friday, 10-4 weekends, on:
0800 279 6888 (Solicitors, Law Students and Legal Executives in England and Wales)
0800 279 6869 (Solicitors, Advocates and Law Students in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man)
0800 018 4299 (Barristers, Clerks and Judges in England and Wales)
1800 991801 (Solicitors in the Republic of Ireland)

Pride comes before a Fall

I cancelled the piano tuner. It may not sound like much, but it was almost traumatic. He comes every six months to tune our ancient piano, and he charges £40 for doing so. But with the recession even reaching his usual workplaces of Russia and Azerbaijan, my self-employed auditor husband hadn’t had any work since November, so we are having to tighten our belts. That means luxuries like piano tuning have to go.

Actually I’m tone deaf and wouldn’t know whether or not the piano is in tune. In fact, for all I know, the piano tuner could have been scamming me for years and laughing quietly to himself when I declared, “That sounds so much better!” and handed over the cash equivalent of half our weekly food budget. But even so, it was very difficult for me to phone him up and ask him not to come next month, as scheduled, because we couldn’t afford to pay for it. Whilst it’s easier to admit to the necessity of such cutbacks when everyone is in the same boat, it is never easy to tell others that things are difficult. Especially when those people also need to come up with cash for the weekly food budget. I was quite pleased to have to deliver the message to the answering machine rather than the man in person. And if he has been scamming me for years, it serves him right.

C.S. Lewis once said: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.” In other words, the only reason it was difficult for me to tell the piano tuner’s answering machine that I couldn’t afford to pay him his fee was because I somehow considered it important to be seen by him as someone who had plenty of money to splash around on luxuries like a tuneful piano. And actually, that is about the crux of it.

We are faced daily with similar problems on the LawCare helpline. We recently had a case where a solicitor had run his own conveyancing and probate practice for over twenty years. For most of that time it had been extremely successful and profitable, but now, despite all the economies he had made – moving the firm into his home and making his assistant redundant – it was clear to him that he could not continue. He was faced with having to go, cap in hand, to some of the larger firms in the area and seek employment with them in order to pay his mortgage and run-off insurance. In difficult times we have to do difficult things. The façade of the high-flying wealthy lawyer may have to come down, and some of us may have to swallow our pride and admit that we are struggling. LawCare is here to support you as you make those difficult decisions and to remind you that, even though you may have to let go of your pride, you don’t need to let go of your self-respect, or of hope for the future.

LawCare’s free and confidential helpline is available 9-7.30 Monday-Friday, 10-4 weekends, on:
0800 279 6888 (Solicitors, Law Students and Legal Executives in England and Wales)
0800 279 6869 (Solicitors, Advocates and Law Students in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man)
0800 018 4299 (Barristers, Clerks and Judges in England and Wales)
1800 991801 (Solicitors in the Republic of Ireland)