You're Not a Lawyer Anymore

It's been been just about 25 years since I embarked upon my career as a lawyer.  Law school and the bar exam were behind me as, with more than some trepidation, I pushed open the mahogany doors of the firm where I was newly employed.

Let's make no mistake about this: I knew how to do exactly nothing.  New lawyers have been trained to research reams of material and to think with a certain analytical bent, and have memorized enough basic material to get through the three days of the state bar examination. But new lawyers seldom have the vaguest idea of how to write a will, probate an estate, draft a contract, initiate a lawsuit, or try a case.  It would actually be extremely difficult to overestimate just how little new lawyers know.

Nevertheless, and completely in spite of our utter incompetence, we are provided for.  On my first day of work, I was escorted to my office -- my very own 10' x 10' space, equipped with a desk, a chair for me, two chairs for other people (Clients?  Would I have real clients?  People with legal problems?  Problems that I was supposed to solve? ), a bookcase, a phone with two lines, a window, and a door that closed. (No computer. Hard to believe, but such was life 25 years ago.)  Outside my office was a secretary, a woman who was designated to work for me and one other attorney, a woman who knew more about the practice of law than I at that time could even imagine existed.

Fast forward 25 years.  I have changed careers -- another story which perhaps I will tell someday.  I did learn how to do all those lawyerly things, and I did them well -- but I was meant to be a teacher, and a teacher I am.  I am not a great teacher -- give me a few more years, at least -- but I am a competent teacher.  I have taught students from preschool through law school, and I am beginning my fourth year in the same high school.  I am at least far more capable as a teacher than I was as a lawyer on that first day of work so long ago.

So you tell me: why is it so hard to get one of these???

When I began my present job, another teacher and I commandeered a large desk in a room that also housed two special services teachers and an after-school math tutor.  We drew a metaphorical line down the middle of the desk and we were satisfied -- we each had some space for books, one side of drawers, and a surface on which to write.  We were usually free at different times, so the situation worked well.

Last year, that room having been remodeled for other purposes, I became one of our school's nomads, working out of briefcases, the back of my car, and piles on other people's desks, piles which were most definitely irritants to the owners of the desks.  The principal kindly had a desk installed for my use in the classroom where I taught.  Problem?  Four other teachers taught there, too -- so the room was never available as a quiet work space.

This year, a classroom has been cleared for teacher use and I was assigned the task of planning the space.  No doubt because of my endless whining, but I was thrilled. A goal, a series of tasks, an end in sight.  I quickly surveyed the teachers, discovered that ELEVEN of us have no permanent workspace, compiled a list of needs, created a diagram, and drew up a requisition list: desks, file cabinets, a bookcase.

Am I being wholly unreasonable here?

Today I asked the head custodian how we were doing.

"Oh, I don't have any furniture for that room.  It's all been used elsewhere."

(Sputtering): "But I thought that we were going to BUY furniture."

"Well, I can't do that.  You need a PO for that, and no way is the principal going to pay for that."

"But that was the whole idea!"

Shrug.

So we have an empty room and eleven homeless teachers.  Oh, wait -- the room isn't empty.  It has a couch.  The custodian keeps referring to the room as "the teachers' lounge" and I keep telling him that we don't WANT a lounge.  We WANT a place to work.

I am beginning to understand why teachers so often  complain about salaries ( usually quite good), benefits (usually incredible), and demands upon them (usually intense).  It's the working conditions.  It's the fact that teachers are expected to balance an almost overwhelming number of distinct tasks, some large and some minute and many unrelated to one another, without adequate tools to accomplish them.  In our case, the necessary tool is a workspace.  Exactly the same tool that we are always encouraging parents to supply for their children: a place dedicated to work, a comfortable and well-lit and quiet place where materials can be stored and projects can be organized.

The esteem in which teachers are held and their needs recognized was summarized succinctly by my daughter the other day.  After listening to my litany of workspace complaints, she shrugged and said,

"Mom, you aren't a lawyer anymore!"