Vivien Chen's post today on corporatecounsel.com brought about some reminders for me. Vivien simply addressed things Labor Day signifies and what lawyers should and shouldn't be doing over the holiday.
I thought that paralegals, the busiest cog that makes the wheel turn, should probably take a look at a similar checklist. After all, it's three or four days of supposed restful bliss for all professionals, and paralegals are no less deserving. So, here is what I came up with to maximize the summer's end:
- Send a text to the most likely candidates who will text you over the weekend for absolutely no reason except to ask you about files that you haven't thought about in 18 months. Tell them that you just borrowed a kind stranger's cell phone at the local Starbucks to send this text and that your Blackberry is lost. Be sure to buy the kind stranger a frappe - grande.
- Leave a voice-mail on your cell phone that says your battery is dead and the store down the block has run out of supplies. You won't be able to buy one until Tuesday and you gave up your land line a year ago.
- Abolish any idea of being anywhere in the neighborhood of the office over the weekend. In fact, set your GPS to beep loudly should you come within 10 blocks of the office. You probably have no business being there anyway.
- Hide your books by Dr. Phil, Tony Robbins, and any other self-improvement guru. Self-improvement is work. This is Labor Day weekend. Don't labor.
- Go out and get some reading material to take home that you only peruse while standing in the check-out at the grocery store because God-forbid that anyone should see you reading it. Read it. It's chicken soup for your gossip starved soul.
- Don't diet. Believe me. Few people will gain 17 pounds over the weekend. Two, maybe, but enough to go from a size 10 to a size 12? No. Give yourself permission to be human.
- Don't check business e-mail. Put your "I'm away for the weekend - won't be checking e-mail - in a remote place without Internet" auto-response on. Ask your spouse, significant other, good friend, to change your password for you and keep it to themselves for the weekend. Make sure they are available Tuesday morning though. It wouldn't be a very pretty picture to not be able to get into your e-mail in front of your boss.
- Go to a movie you really want to see. In fact, do a double feature. Eat popcorn - twice with fake butter. Buy Milk Duds and nachos and huge pretzels. Get the biggest Icee you can. Bring Prilosec. You don't want to be lying on your stomach moaning and groaning for the rest of the weekend.
- Ask a friend or family member to go exploring with you. Explore the city you live in. You'll be surprised to find out that just down the block, a new huge box store was built. Funny how the neighborhood changes when you're billing 2,000 hours a year.
- Don't look at the work you brought home despite your Labor Day resolve. It will still be there on Tuesday morning when you return and it won't give one fig whether you read it, worked on it or missed out on a good time because of it.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Enjoy! Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend and we'll see you all next week!
