Featured Survey Results: You Cancelled What?
In last week’s ATL / Lateral Link survey, we asked you about how often you cancelled your personal plans for work.
We received 633 responses, and, by and large, you should just stop making personal plans. Thirty-six percent of respondents had cancelled plans “too many times to count” last year, while another 17% had cancelled plans six to ten times. Eighteen percent had broken plans three to five times, and sixteen percent had cancelled plans only once or twice. Only thirteen percent of respondents never cancelled personal plans over work last year.
Associates in New York and Los Angeles were the most frequent date-breakers, with 78% of respondents in each city cancelling plans at least three to five times, and over 40% cancelling plans too many times to count. Washington, DC and the Bay Area were close behind. Associates in Atlanta, Boston, and Texas were more likely to have personal lives, with Chicago somewhere in the middle.
Most respondents, 84%, simply missed dinner, and about 70% of associates have worked through the weekend. Fifty-six percent of respondents blew off parties, and about half missed family dates. Around forty percent of associates missed dates, TV, or holidays, and around a third cancelled vacations. One quarter of associates reported that they have skipped sex to work, but only eleven percent said they had missed a religious event. Associates in Chicago were the most likely to miss dinner, while Bostonians were the most likely to cancel a date — but the least likely to miss sex.
Why all the social de-scheduling? Sixty-five percent of respondents have put their personal plans on hold because a partner asked them to finish something. Another sixty percent just decided they had things they needed to get done. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said a client told them to do it. Twelve percent needed the hours. Five and a half percent of associates just wanted to impress someone. A little over half of respondents thought the work was not important enough to justify breaking their plans.
These numbers were dramatically different for the respondents who had actually blown off sex to work. Ninety percent of these respondents were asked to finish something by a partner (at the office). Sixty percent were asked by a client. Almost a quarter thought they needed the hours, while eleven percent skipped their personal plans because they “wanted to impress people.”
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Comments
so so firsty!!
Second!
who is this Justin Bernold????
maybe
http://www.brombergsunstein.com/attorneys/j-bernold.html
What does skipping sex to work mean? Does it mean that you were actually about to throw it in, but then was abruptly interrupted by a call from a partner only to zip up and scurry off to work?
Does it mean that you thought or planned to have sex on a certain evening, but had to stay late and ultimately didn't have sex?
I've never skipped sex for anything - ever. Although I can't say I'm some tantric freak, there's no reason why a quickie should ever be skipped...
I agree Bostonians have it right... even though they lost the super bowl.
One should never skip sex to work. it should be one of those immutable laws... gravity, taxes, death, and sex before work.
What we need is a way to bill clients while we have sex. Maybe lawyers should think about their arguments for their 12(b)(6) motion to last longer instead of baseball... Kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
Chicago associates are most likely to "miss" dinner because they do, as a general matter, get to leave early enough to eat dinner at home (or out). It's a 8/9 am to 7/8 pm town, whereas NY is 10 to 10/11.
So say you're still in law school, but you have to decide on an NYC biglaw practice area in the near future. You would like to continue to make and occasionally keep dinner plans, and you really want to continue having sex. What do you choose? Is litigation more stable than corporate? Will it many any difference at all?
i once replied to an email from a partner on my blackberry while receiving a bj, does that count?
Umm, I'm no math whiz, but the following makes absolutely no sense in my mind:
"Why all the social de-scheduling? Sixty-five percent of respondents have put their personal plans on hold because a partner asked them to finish something. Another sixty percent just decided they had things they needed to get done. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said a client told them to do it. Twelve percent needed the hours. Five and a half percent of associates just wanted to impress someone."
@2:18
Maybe next time you should email that partner while you're GIVING a bj.
@2:18--- Maybe just skip the middleman and give one to your partner?
2:18 here, in response to 2:22 and 2:25. the partner was a woman. a hot one. i would love to skip the middleman (as it were) and show her my peepee.
2:27:
You were getting a BJ from a man?
Maybe associates in NY just make more social plans.
2:20, respondents have probably put their plans on hold more than once and probably have had more than one reason for doing so. If 90% of ATL readers think 2:18/2:27 was lying and 99% of ATL readers think he's probably a dbag, that doesn't mean there's a math error.
2:27, what does "middleman (as it were)" mean?
If you meant it was a female giver, the correct expression is "middlewoman (as it were)." If not, why do you also pine for this hot female partner?
hth!
Stupid self important associates love to break plans because they have to “work” when, in fact, if they were just more efficient they could do their work and keep their commitments. Ditto for partners, who love to give out hair brained assignments that “have” to be done by a certain time. If, in fact, those partners had the vaguest idea what they were doing they would know what is needed and associates would be able to plan their time better.
Note also that the sample is self selecting: only the stupid self important associates bothered to fill it out so they could tell the world how much they “work.” They also seem to want to tell the world how much sex they miss for work. Bet those guys and gals could not get laid if their lives depended on it. No one who actually has sex misses it for work.
You guys don't have massive orgies in big law? Here at Mom & Pop LLP, we may not get the special bonuses NY firms dish out, but we get the "special bonuses" at home.
Man... Here I though you money-hungry, do-it-all-for-the-money associates were in it to get some P#&&Y! Apparently, you're just in it for the money and to BE a P#&&Y.
I'll take my low income and satisfied libido over your overworked and under-sexed lifestyle any day.
Selection bias?
3:31 your "special bonuses at home" thing reminds me of the 72 virgin thing. Sure you get 72 virgins, but no one said they'd be good looking.
It's not the quantity, it's the quality. Us biglaw associates have enough money to buy the finest.
Hey 3:31, when was the last time you could afford two $500 an hour hookers?
Get back to your right (or left) hand...
I couldn't afford two $500 hookers. But even if I did, I wouldn't want the hidden costs of screwing something that requires a credit card and security deposit. With all the free time I have by working at Mom & Pop LLP, I actually have social skills sufficiently attuned to get a woman to have sex with me for free! YES, not all women charge.
What about all those times you don't even bother to make plans because you know you'll be disappointed that you have to cancel? Better to have low expectations than to have high ones.
Hear, hear 9:46--I've cancelled like twice in the past 6 months but that's because I've rarely bothered even trying to make a definite plan and even then only on the weekends...
9:46: Good distinction. It's funny, though, to test the boundaries with this stuff. I got a project at the last second from a senior associate and had this pro bono thing the next day that I told him about that I'd been planning on attending for weeks. He said "Well, you may have to miss it" and I just said "No, I can't." That was pretty much the end of it. I asked the partner who needed it ASAP (allegedly) if I could have an extra day and he said it was fine. Sometimes, you just have to ask.