Dear Downstairs, Dirty, Loud Neighbors:
I mean, really. You’re moving. I saw you loading shit out of your apartment today. I saw instruments being carried out. And you’ve been so good over the last week and a half–keeping relatively quiet, making yourselves scarce.
So why, WHY, did you decide to start playing music NOW? Right when I am about to EAT DINNER?
OH MY GOD. YOU SUCK.
Toodles!
k
I’m going on a callback today.
In preparation, I spent some time looking online for questions I should ask–just to supplement the ready stable of questions I’ve already prepared, of course. And what I found is sort of interesting.
For instance, I found a website for associates looking to lateral into a new firm that suggested asking the tough questions–what is the partnership track? how are associates evaluated outside of billable hours? what is the firm’s growth projection? These questions are good questions because they help the interviewee figure out if the firm’s management, growth, and business model will further the interviewee’s own ambitions. I like these questions. I think I might ask some of them.
But then I found a different website on a law school’s career services website that insisted you should NEVER ask the hard questions, because those kinds of questions give off a “what’s in it for me” flair. So, no asking about the pro bono program, no asking about how many billable hours are expected (to be fair, this is often on a firm’s NALP form, but sometimes it’s not), and, yes, no asking about the partership track.
I can understand that asking, “What hours will you expect me to be here?” might come off badly. But I would think a firm would be glad that potential future associates were asking about the partnership track–wouldn’t that indicate they are interested in sticking around to try to make partner? And firms nowadays also like to talk about their pro bono programs, because it’s a way they can set themselves apart from all the other firms. Sure, don’t ask if you can substitute all of your billables with pro bono, but asking if associates get the chance to do pro bono (as a way of getting excellent training in leading a case or matter, for instance) doesn’t seem like it would get you kicked out of the office right away.
I don’t know. Maybe my experience is skewed, because I am at a “top law school” (whatever that means) and the interviewing process is less frightening. My sense throughout has been less, “I’m competing against all these people for very few positions!” and more “Some of these firms really want to impress us because they want us to work there!” And that might make it easier for me to ask tougher or more pointed questions. (Always in a very polite and non-threatening way, of course.)
One thing I won’t ask about, though, unless I get a really strong vibe that it would be an OK question, is alternative scheduling. At the very least, I’ll be choosy about who I’d approach the topic with.
