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I think unrepresentative vocal minority
Things have calmed down quite a bit as folks have gotten busier, but we were raked pave the coast in my firm’s bowl. However, the number of participants in any thread was about 1% of the total number of associates.
It always sounded like the world was coming to an end, yet last year attrition was the lowest in a decade and the associates I work with all seem fine (and many roll their eyes at the complainers).
The complaining is honestly exhausting. It's as if we never had to pay our dues to get to where we are and salaries have jumped crazy amounts for associates in the last few years, at least compared to what I was making, inflation aside. Maybe I have a dated perspective though.
^ this. The post-covid associate classes are just riddled with entitlement. It’s actually unbelievable how little associates fear the possibility of being fired these days. When I was an associate, I felt like we lived in near constant fear we weren’t doing enough or would be fired.
That coupled with the anonymity factor, I think really skew the conversation. There’s also a lot of fake engagement on this app. For instance, you will notice the same 4 members in every bowl who are not admins but rather intended to inflate the perception of the engagement / users.
Mostly a vocal minority. But if you think it is bad now, I don’t know if you were around here in 2020/21, but it was insane. Associates would post diatribes about how they would shut their phones off at 6pm each night, didn’t have to tell anyone they would be out of pocket for a week, to simply ignore emails all weekend as a matter of routine since if something was important, “the partners, who get all the money, can do it themselves,” and numerous others similar things, and they would have 40 likes with anyone expressing anything to the contrary called a bootlicker. I could give dozens of similarly absurd examples.
This changed quickly at the beginning of 2022 and, while it has drifted a little back toward that with the special bonuses in recent years, the tone is reasonable now in relative terms. If the transactional space and lateral markets heat up again, we are in for it again.
I had an associate last year who flew to the other side of the country with almost no notice and just said she'd be working from California with her family. I was like... OK cool so.... Those filings you're helping me with next week... That venue has a 530pm closing time (eastern) for filing. You'll still be available for those...? (Because in my practice area, anyone working on these filings must be admitted under a protective order. It's just the two of us. I can't call anyone else to help.) Absolutely! OK great.
Cut to day of filing deadline. 230pm. I ask for some documents because I'm trying to finish the filing she didn't do a great job with. She's at lunch with her family. She says she won't be back before the filing deadline. Excuse me??
I agree that there's something between THAT and my boomer senior partners who used to tell me just to "log back on" after getting my newborn to sleep. But sheesh. I'm relatively young, and these associates have me feeling like I'm being unreasonable for just wanting some reliability.
I'd agree. I can remember a few years ago being on here as an associate and many of the fees didn't quite align with those of mine and my colleagues. Squeaky wheel gets the grease though.
Sorry, didn't notice the typo. Meant to say, "many of the opinions didn't align"
I do think it seems off. A good example would be the comments on the thread about the 2021 grad (not biglaw) making $195k with 1800 billables.
In my opinion, on average, the postings tend to capture more of the negativity. You have to take the postings with a grain of salt, but I wouldn’t also disregard them as they may have some important insights.