Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

HOWDY ALL

Went to a big Halloween party this weekend at 99 Hooker -- the sixth annual, actually, although I've only been around for 5 (and I didn't go last year). This party is regarded by one and all to be THE party of the year -- when rambling old 99 Hooker is transformed into a gigantic party palace. Three bands in the basement (over the course of the evening), five kegs of pretty cheap beer, and a couple of hundred happening young people in costume. I was one of them, and my costume this year was a "robber" -- black flat cap, black "domino" mask, black turtleneck and trousers, and a big white bag with a giant "$" on it (the mask and the dollar sign were formerly a woman's vest that I purchased at a local thrift store). It was a pretty simple outfit, really, but everyone immediately knew who I was. Some people mistakenly called me the "Hamburgler", to which I responded with a good-natured "Rabble rabble".

This party is characterized by its darkness -- blacklights, strobe lights, little chili pepper christmas lights are all the illumination there is. Bands play in the basement, and are loud enough to hear all the way upstairs. The upper floors of the couse are bedrooms, which are usually closed off during the party.

I have been to four of these parties, and each one has had a very diffferent flavor. The first one was dominated by the fact that I had a fight with my girlfriend at the time involving how close I was standing next to an attractive classmate of mine in the kitchen. The second involved me falling over a barbed-wire fence in the neighbor's yard while dressed as a Mississippi state trooper -- requiring a visit to the clinic the next day. The third required me to explian to a real Boston cop why there was a high school girl throwing up in our front yard. despite the way this sounds, the party has always been a blast. There's drama, adventure, music etc.

This year was dominated by the fact that I became more drunk than I believe I ever have in the past.

More later . . . posted by Carlton at 9:09 PM

OFFICE POOL

We're having go at predicting the day that they announce the next big round of layoffs is happening here at the ol' Hutch. They went ahaead and told us it would be 'soon'. And the way they make it sound, it's going to be big. Half the remaining attorneys? Maybe not that many. Needless to say, the numbers are another topic of intense speculation. They actually made it sound like HWD is going to do the corporate equivalent of finding a quiet place to lie down, cover itself with its cloak and die.

I'm betting on tomorrow. Others are suggesting next week.

I wrote a long blog about the Hooker street party that I went to this weekend, but it disappeared. Rats. posted by Carlton at 9:53 AM

GOOD GOLLY

I've been off the blogging wagon for a while recently. I'm sorry to anyone who has an interest in reading what I'm writing here. I tend to do most of my writing when I have something to complain about -- and that hasn't been the case in a little while. Besides all the boring work stuff, I would like to mention that I have been keeping company with a very nice young woman for about 1 1/2 months now, and she has been a welcome distraction from my crappy internet life. Her name is Molly, which is propitious if you subscribe to the screwy superstition about the first letter of people's names the way I do (M is a very promising letter, or has been in the past, and she has no Ks in her name at all.) I met her through my connections at Hooker Street, the big filthy semi-commune where I lived during law school -- she moved out just before I moved in.

Maybe I'll write more about it later -- let it suffice that I'm pretty damned happy with the situation as it stands. posted by Carlton at 2:32 PM

LET'S PUT THE 'FUN' BACK IN 'FUNGIBLE'

Well, the Hutch (the law firm where I work) continues to destroy itself. The story up till now: After a round of layoffs last fall, most of us associates waited in fear for the ax to fall again. This summer, a significant segment of the firm (most of the corporate department) broke off to become the Boston office of a big New York firm. At the same time, the leaders of the rest of the Hutch announced that we would be merging our tattered remains with the Boston office of another national firm. That was all well and good, but it turned out that the national firm didn't want all of us, so on September 10 we had another round of layoffs. That will be the last of the layoffs, stated the management -- everyone left at the Hutch has a job at the new firm. Those of us that remained breathed a sigh of relief.

Just this Friday, two of our partners announced that they are leaving the Hutch for other firms (not the one we are merging with). They take their clients with them, of course, leaving all the associates that worked with these partners (many) without any work at all. Conventional wisdom states that 1) associates who did most of their work for these two partners will be laid off, and 2) any other partners that can cut deals for themselves elsewhere will do so.

Here's the thing, really -- I don't blame anyone for doing anything at this point. The Hutch is going down like the Lusitania and deserves no loyalty, and at this point anyone who can find a better deal for himself or herself at another place should do so. At the same time, do these people actually consider the repercussions of their decisions on their subordinates? Did Partner X think about Associates A, B and C, whom he has worked with for at least a few years, when making this deal for himself? Should he have? These are honest questions -- I'm not outraged by this development (mostly because it won't be me -- hopefully -- who loses his job), but I'd REALLY like to know what kind of people I am working for. I rather think that the partner did not consider his subordinates, and that they will lose their jobs. I learned a new word in law school which has come to my lips often in the last few months: "fungible." If a commodity is fungible it means that any one can be exchanged for any other one -- in a bucket of nails, for example, one nail is pretty much fungible for any other. One share of stock is fungible for any other share of the same class of the same stock.

Associates are fungible. One trait of a good associate is that his or her work is as close to indistinguishable from the work performed by another associate as possible -- no one picking up a memo written by associate A should be able to find anything distinctive about it that would indicate its authorship. Sometimes we are referred to (and refer to ourselves) as "billing units" -- cogs in the machine.

It's hard to even want to succeed after this hits home. posted by Carlton at 11:57 PM

YEAH, I KNOW

If I want people to read this space, it might be good if i occasionally post stuff here that is even remotely interesting. Well, I'd like to. Fact is that the most interesting thing that's happening in my life is still sort of a work-in-progress. I'd hate to jinx it by saying something too soon -- not that I believe in jinxes. More like, I just don't want to say something now and gnash my teeth in frustration upon reading it later. But . . . she is a very nice young woman, and I am very excited about having met her . . . .

posted by Carlton at 11:34 PM

Man, Greg is right -- I think the end of the world IS nigh. posted by Carlton at 11:24 PM

Oh, and it's fixed. Except the comments are in a deucedly awkward place. Like I said -- whatever. posted by Carlton at 5:09 PM

IT'S ALL EFFED UP AND I DON'T CARE

Yeah, I got about halfway through the YACCS fix, and now all my comments are gone. So what. I've got stuff goin' on, man. Too much stuff to let the YACCS get me down. posted by Carlton at 4:56 PM