Starting a New Job in a Global Pandemic Might Be the Best Thing That’s Happened to My Career

Yep…I Switched Law Firms During a Pandemic

For those of you following my job saga on Twitter, you know that my boss decided at the end of last year to leave our old firm and took his team (me, a paralegal, and another attorney) with him to a different firm. We spent several months meeting with firms and ended up at a BigLaw firm that is going to be a great fit for me in particular.

There’s plenty to complain about these days, and honestly, it’s getting kinda draining (name that musical!) so I decided to highlight one of the good things that has come out of COVID for me. Starting a new job remotely during the pandemic has actually benefitted me in so many ways versus going into a new office setting. While some of them were predictable, a few of them surprised me!

…and it turned out to be a good thing!

I’ll start with benefits that apply only to me and then I’ll move to general improvements anyone (like you!) could see with a remote job change. First, I actually received a huge salary increase. I’m in the (very low) $200,000s now. All the better to pay the student loans with, right? I do think they slightly lowballed the salary because of all of the uncertainty in the marketplace right now, but it’s an almost $60,000 raise for me, so no complaints.

Second, our new firm has expanded so rapidly in my city that there are actually no available attorney offices in our current space; only paralegal offices (attorneys have outside, window offices and paralegals have inside offices in most law firms, while secretaries have cubicles). So I’m also avoiding working in a windlowless office filled with random firm crap they don’t have a place for at the moment  By the time we go in-person again, we’ll have signed a new lease in a new building, and I can set everything up in my new attorney office instead of doing it twice. I’m also avoiding the monthly parking fee.

Now on to the fun things that benefit all of you. If you’re single and childless like I am, and just started a new job or you’re looking to start a new job, here are a few things you can all to look forward to in this wild, unconventional work environment:

(1)   Being forced to be at home most of the time and the complete lack of real social life gives you the chance to be extremely available at weird times.

Being available and responsive in the first few months of working somewhere builds a good foundation (obviously you set boundaries later, but for the first little while, you want to make sure the new guys know you’re reliable). Plus, and sorry to the parents out there, you have way more time than parents to be getting in the hours you need, which is unfortunately important in BigLaw. So you can look like a rock star. Which is the best thing that can happen at a new job.

(2)   Being at home also gives you more time to work healthy and self-care habits into your life around work because you aren’t spending time commuting, dressing for the office, going to lunch with coworkers, etc.

Unless I have a hard deadline, I can work in all kinds of activities: midday workouts without having to shower before returning to the office, more walks with my dog, running a few errands, therapy sessions at odd hours, reading a contract poolside, taking a nap in the afternoon and then working later to compensate.

If you have a lot of anxiety like I do, this also makes life better in some ways because if you’re having an anxiety attack and you don’t have a meeting, you can take the time you need (at home) to handle it. The downside is that the pandemic and being isolating might be *causing* some of that anxiety, but you can’t win ‘em all.

(3)   You avoid all the unspoken, new kid “face time” expectations that can come with a new job.

You know how it is. You have to earn the right to take a longer lunch. People expect you to be in your office or answer your office phone. Right now? Complete free-for-all. You miss a call and have to call someone back? Normal. No one asks why you weren’t immediately available. Your dog wanders into the WebEx screen during a practice group meeting? HIGHLIGHT of the day.

No one is asking you to lunches or happy hours or eyeing your ingress and egress times (I once had a coworker – not a superior, and not someone who was even in my work group – who would legitimately monitor when my name turned green on our internal chat systems in the morning, and how long it was “idle” during the lunch hour, then comment to me when he thought I was late or had taken a long lunch. DON’T BE THAT GUY.)

By the time you’re actually in the office, you’ll be an old hat, and the pandemic will probably have fundamentally changed the butts-in-seats dynamic to some degree anyway.

It’s a bit odd meeting other associates and partners via WebEx, but I’ll take that any day over someone having time expectations of me simply because I’m new. I don’t like stupid, unspoken rules and I rarely follow them, so not being subjected to them as the new employee makes life a lot easier!

(4)   Fewer politics and personality clash opportunities.

Not saying people think you suck. I’m sure you’re all lovely people out there reading my blog. But yall know how terrible it is when you start somewhere and don’t necessarily click with someone in person. When everything is video or on the phone, there’s already a level of awkwardness built in that I’m finding is making people less judgmental of people asking follow-up questions, misunderstandings, etc. because everyone is navigating new communication terrain.

I’ve worked at firms where asking questions or having someone double-check your work was viewed as stupidity or a weakness. A partner at a past firm told me they thought I wasn’t paying attention because I was repeating things back on a conference call (I was…taking notes and confirming I wrote things down correctly so I could draft properly, you know, BASIC LISTENING SKILLS?). Some people are so terrible.

Anyway, the shift to being more patient in communication due to everyone working remotely hopefully means that when you do move to in-person communication, the history you’ve established of doing a good job on projects (I’m assuming all of you are champs on the job) and if there is any in-person personality issue with a coworker or boss, you’ll have more runway for tolerating each other and figuring out a good system of working together because you aren’t new to the overall work dynamic, even if you’re new to the physical space.

(5)   Permanently redesigned expectations for being in the office.

This one is the least certain to happen, but the most exciting to me if it does: many corporate jobs will permanently alter their expectations of in-office time vs out-of-office time. Since we’ve, and more importantly, the people in charge, have realized how much work we’re capable of accomplishing off-site, there is likely to be a shift in attitudes about working remotely more often and/or for longer stretches of time.

People can work 2/3s in office/at home. People can go to the beach for a month and work remotely while they’re there. The possibilities are endless! One of my dreams is to own homes or pieds-à-terre in various places: the 30A stretch of beaches in Florida, Paris, New York City. If those things actually come to pass, and the work culture has changed to allow location flexibility, I could live and work remotely in those places for a month each year if I wanted to! Not to mention the general flexibility it would provide in everyday life (as I discussed above).

The pandemic might change our jobs for life! And I’m here for it.

There’s plenty to get down about right now, but hopefully this list gives you a few ideas of how the pandemic could benefit you if you’re in a newer job, you’re looking for a job, or even if you’ve been with your company for years! Take advantage of the silver linings where you can.

How has your job (or any) situation improved from the pandemic? Or has it just completely gone to hell in a handbasket? Share in the comments!