Views are Perks

When you hear the word "benefits" in conjunction with a job, you think of boring shit like like health insurance and 401K plans and a cake for everyone whose birthday is in each month.

Any law firm I'm going to work at will have these things, so I barely pay attention to them. I'm more interested in the fun benefits. Is there a bagel day? Can we wear jeans on Fridays? Tell me the good stuff.

I left the place with the overweight pear-shaped secretary next to me, because in almost three months they had made no moves towards making me a permanent employee. Yesterday I started at a new firm several blocks away. So far, it's going pretty well.

See that picture? That's pretty much my view, except normally it's light out. Secretaries don't get offices, and usually my view is a cubicle wall. If I'm lucky, my view is the wall of a hallway a few feet away. But I sit at a corner here, and face the doorway of the managing partner's office, and can see right out his window, where I can look at cars crossing the Bay Bridge.

Yet again I'm working at a law firm where their main office is not in San Francisco. Sometimes this can be good - you can get away with things you wouldn't be able to do at the main office. But sometimes you're treated like the red-headed stepchild who doesn't get what the other "real" kids get.

At this firm, they will pay 100% of a gym membership to specific gyms, as long as you meet specific criteria. However, one of those gyms is one only found near the main office. There's a file clerk (yay!) but he's the most monotone, dead personality type of guy I've ever met. No smiles, no annoyance, no emotion at all.

I'm working with two partners and one senior associate who (is not partner because she) works part time. Both partners made it a point to stress that I work with them, rather than for them.

The woman who sits next to me was out yesterday and left early today. She's lovely, and I'm not just saying that because she's barely there so far. She's very quiet and calm and warm.

Tomorrow the office is hosting lunch. Thursday is birthday cake day. On Fridays the firm hosts breakfast. All this stuff is nice. But I'm just happy when the managing partner leaves his office door open.