Test Case: Can I Get On Top Of My Workload By Pulling An All-Nighter At The Office?

It’s after midnight, and I am typing this column at my desk in downtown Seattle. I just got back from vacation—visiting my 102-year-old grandma in Detroit—and ever since, I have felt like it was simply impossible for me to get on top of my workload. Indeed, my to-do list is growing faster than I can check things off of it.

It seemed like all I needed was a few extra hours in the day, without interruption from emails and calls, to get caught up. Cue my (now very much regretted) idea of pulling a storied, law-office all-nighter.

I am not completely unfamiliar with the overnighter concept. As a college freshman, I once spent the night at the University of Washington undergraduate library writing a political science paper. (It was about how the country should use the nation’s surplus funds, which these days sounds like an amusing hypothetical.) In law school and during my first few years of practice—when I did only litigation, with a boss who thought the only time to get work done was at the last minute—I burned the midnight oil to study for exams and meet deadlines, but always managed a couple of hours of fitful sleep in my own bed.

But I know of at least one associate who used to sleep under her desk at a big firm in Seattle. And I also think there is still some belief out there that it is a badge of honor to spend the night at the office—that you are so busy and important that you can’t even be bothered with the evening and morning commute.

An office building like mine—which sports a drugstore, gym and locker room, and deli that serves fantastic cheddar-broccoli soup—makes you question whether you shouldn’t just sleep over more often. And I brought an overnight bag loaded with everything from pajamas to deep conditioner. I envisioned a night of hard work capped off with a few hours tucked in on my never-used napping couch. Perhaps rising early to hit the gym and grab a breakfast burrito.

So here I am.

My primary motivation in undertaking this experiment was to see how productive I could be when graced with a few “surplus” hours in the office. And, in fact, after normal working hours, I managed to crank out more than three extra billing hours and corresponded with a potential client about setting up a meeting. I also straightened up my chronically messy office and listened to a free online CLE about something involving lawyers or the law while I cleared my full voicemail inbox and searched the web for a concert to take my boyfriend to for his b-day. I also tried to return a package using the UPS drop-off bin in a creepy underground floor in my building, but it got stuck in the chute and I had to wrestle it out while worrying about looking like a mail thief in security footage.

I am slightly worried that the recipients of my late-night emails will think I am a stereotypical insomniac-slash-workaholic attorney like those portrayed in the media—or that my words were nonsensical after an overlong day of providing legal advice. And I do have to admit that, after powering through until 8:30 p.m., I left the office for a couple of hours to eat a cheeseburger at Five Guys and attend a 25-minute set of my boyfriend’s coworker’s band, Quiet, whose music is characterized by its general loudness.

At any rate, when I returned to the office parking garage, I stealthily avoided the front-desk guys so they wouldn’t (1) pity my late-night reappearance, and (2) notice I was toting my sleeping bag, just in case there is some sort of clause in the lease prohibiting office drones from taking up temporary residence. I also used my old-timey detective skills to conclude that the custodial staff was done with my office, as my Diet Coke can was no longer in the recycling bin. But my sleuthing deduction turned out to be flawed when around 1:00 a.m. the cleaner showed up to vacuum. To avoid awkwardness, I pretended to be getting ready to leave. My acting skills were less than admirable, but she seemed to have better things to do than worry about why some shifty lawyer was still skulking around the office.

It turns out the real issue is not being tired or trying to think coherent thoughts late at night. It’s that it is super spooky to be in an empty office building alone around the time it would be reasonable for monsters to start lurking about. During the day, my office is a cozy cocoon of papers and cat-themed knickknacks; at night, while I was mainlining sleep deprivation, it plunged into the upside-down world from Stranger Things. Our building is tall and creaks and shifts like an unavenged soul, and it sounds like there is a family of ghosts re-arranging furniture upstairs. Otherwise it is so quiet the hum of the computers is deafening (even more deafening than Quiet), except for the blare of ambulances that routinely pass by, and one instance of gunshots on the streets below.

When I finally settled myself onto the couch, I realized that, even though we lease space in a “green” building, some of the lights in our office never turn off. This includes a row of overhead lights that beamed down on my short-term sleeping quarters. One thing I didn’t pack: a sleeping mask. Covering my head with a throw blanket helped reduce the brightness, but the fuzzy acrylic started smothering me.

After an hour of trying to fall asleep, I had to admit that my all-nighter plans had been foiled by fluorescent lighting. I got home around 2:45 a.m. The “commute” took five minutes. I stayed awake for a while wondering if I could have somehow made it through the night at the office, and then wondering why I even tried to do such a thing. I woke up at the usual time, feeling raw like a peeled vegetable.

Despite my failed efforts, which I blame on Thomas Edison, I did learn something from the experience. If you work at a practice like mine, which involves a lot of interaction with people throughout the day, you can get only so much done during the off-hours. And it is impossible to shotgun an entire to-do list in one frantic night. At some point, the mental fog of too much thinking and too little sleep kicks in, and the phrase “point of diminishing returns” starts fitting like a designer t-shirt.

Staying up really late may make sense when you are bolstered by the adrenaline of a big filing deadline, or surrounded by other night owls, but otherwise, there is nothing that improves your practice more than a good night’s sleep in your own damn bed.

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Allison Peryea is a shareholder attorney at Leahy Fjelstad Peryea, a boutique law firm in downtown Seattle that primarily serves community association clients. Her practice focuses on covenant enforcement and dispute resolution. She is a longtime humor writer with a background in journalism and cat ownership. You can reach her by email at [email protected].