At first I saw this one and thought dammit, it’s gonna be hard to write knowing two colleagues read this blog.  The gripes of my past jobs have all been blogged and forgotten, what will I write?  Then I thought sod it.  It’s my blog, and I’ll write what I will.  The chances are I’ve already bitched about it to R and K anyways. 

So some background first.  I’m a float PA in a law firm.  I end up covering anything from one day sicknesses and holidays to maternity leave, long term absences and vacancies.  If I end up covering in a vacancy, want the job the the fee earners want me to, theoretically it’s an easy process to move to a fixed role.  Yeah, that hasn’t happened yet.  The job I’m in was supposed to be my test interview.  I didn’t want it, but I needed something to get me back in to job hunting mode.  Of course things don’t always work out the way you plan and after an intensive thought process I decided to screw the extra £2-4k I could potentially get elsewhere and go for the job.

Yeah, I didn’t realise how much I wanted that extra money.  You see, despite a £4k pay jump in moving to this job, we’re struggling more financially now than ever.  Yeah, a baby on the way doesn’t make things easier either, but we thought we’d be in a very different place by now.  To make matters worse, this year’s bonus was a pathetic attempt to reward us for all our hard work (yes, those words were used) and there’s been no pay rise for any of us.  Match that with rising prices absolutely everywhere else and it’s been a bitter pill to swallow.

But hey, money’s not everything.  Or so I keep trying to tell myself.

Then there’s the job itself.  It was billed as, and I certainly initially thought it was, a good chance to do some interesting stuff.  Sure, there’ve been times when I’ve worked on some high profile cases (yesterday morning’s one will be a cracker when it hits the international sports news!) but for the most part the floats get treated like shit.  By fee earners and static PAs alike.

Long term roles are good.  People immediately start to assume that you’ll be there forever and treat you like you will.  They’ll be nice and friendly (if it’s in their nature to do so) and if there’s work about, you’ll get lots of it.  Because the fee earners know they’re stuck with you, they treat you like you’re their usual PA.  All’s well and good. 

Short term rolls suck balls.  There’s no other way of putting it.  If you’re lucky, and you’re doing a week or two in one place, you might hit jackpot and find a group of people who genuinely want you to work for them.  If you’re even luckier, you might get asked back again and again.  I’ve hit a few places where I’ve done some days and the people start to know and trust you can do the work.  It makes a world of difference.  But, for the most part it’s nothing like that.  You do a day or two and most fee earners will do anything to avoid giving you work.  They’ll get their trainee to do it or another PA, just as long as they don’t have to place their trust in you.  These are the ones we all dread.  And the other PAs are even worse.  You get bored so you offer to help out.  There’s nothing like being able to say at your reviews that you’re a team player.  Sometimes it feels like it’s all we’ve got to offer.  But you get filing that’s been stacked up for weeks because someone can’t be arsed to do it, archiving, printing.  I’ve even been asked to tidy cupboards.  Yeah, we’re only one step away from the toilets here. 

And so it goes…

I could tell you more.  I could rant and rave about this firm, about how six months ago we were all under the threat of redundancy and now they’re recruiting PAs left right and centre.  I could tell you how we won’t be getting a Christmas party this year but they can still afford to pay for numerous events for fee earners and trainees alike.  I could dish the dirt on exactly what goes down in this place, but at the end of the day I need my job, as much as I dislike it.  And there’s a fine line between venting and getting fired.

All I can say is thank god those two colleagues are in the low down ranks with me!