Two weeks ago, the manager in charge of developing systems and policies in the firm (the firm is only 5 years old and this is the first time enough lawyers have worked there that they need policies for things like taking time off to attend conferences and courses, matching contributions for gym memberships, how to bill for time spent recruiting, etc.) sent out an email declaring that everyone had to bill a minimum of 8 hours each day.
This was surprising because it is pretty well known among foreign lawyers here that part of the deal of working in Egypt, part of what you get out of accepting the significantly lower salary that comes from working in the Egyptian market is that you don’t have the same high yearly targets as big British and American firms. At my old non-profit office, “nine to five” meant you had to be in at least by eleven and everyone would start lining up at 4:55 to clock out. Those who came at nine got paid the same as those who came in at eleven. It is just the way things work in Egypt.
So the fact that things will no longer work that way in the firm has its positives and its drawbacks. On the one hand, for recruitment and business development purposes it is obviously important that potential hires and potential clients take us as seriously as they would take a big European or New York law firm. So when we say we have a billing target of 1700 per year and 8 hour minimum days (that is 8 hours that must be billed either to client work or firm work such as recruitment, professional development, research, etc.), which actually works out to a higher billing target than the 1700 hours we’ve been told to aim for, clients, lawyers, and other law firms will understand that conforms pretty well to a high industry standard.
On the other hand, although I was billing around seven hours (which takes about nine or ten hours of actually being in the office to acquire nine billable hours, depending on how efficient I am on any given day) a lot of people were only billing five or so. So this new rule essentially ups everyone’s billable hours and the amount of time everyone has to stay in the office to hit that new target without acknowledging that fundamental truth with a pay increase. The email was dictatorial and vague, offering no details as to how meeting or not meeting the 8 hour minimum requirement would be weighted against other factors at our annual performance reviews in January. Supposedly there will be a follow up email from the boss, who thought this email was a draft and was surprised when it was sent out to everyone as it was but he’s been busy and everyone is struggling to stay calm and professional while management gets the quirks of the new policy straightened out.
It has been stressful because under the new policy, I now have to leave the house around 9 and don’t get home until 7:30 or 8. I have less time to spend with my puppy, Whisky (who got his second round of vaccinations today and is asleep on my foot) and things like reading and exercising have fallen off the map entirely. I usually need a lot of sleep to keep up my pathetic immune system but I am going to need to start training myself to do with less so I can keep those things in my life that keep me sane.
On the subject of health, I want to give a shout out to the Ludwig family, longtime friends of my family, whose mom, Patti, was hit by a car earlier this week. She is still in the ICU in a drug-induced coma at Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland. Her family have set up a blog to update friends and family on her condition. For those of you who know Patti and want to post your support in comments on the blog or send her family something you want them to read to Patti, the link is: http://www.carepages.com/carepages/pattiludwig but you have to set up an account on the homepage first. She is receiving music therapy and they are planning to take her out of the drug-induced coma for a thorough neurological assessment Friday morning. Please everyone send Patti and her family their positive thoughts and prayers.
It has been a difficult year to be so far from home and family. My mom’s friend Sarene passed away suddenly of liver cancer only a month or two after I moved here and a childhood friend of my brother’s died while Thomas was staying with me. I wish I was just the typical few minutes or even few hours’ drive from these friends and their families so I could offer my support but there isn’t much I can do from here. It is very frustrating.
On an unrelated note, though also intensely frustrating, I have yet to successfully order groceries delivered. This is apparently what all of my friends do to save the precious time that we now have so little of but although it is not difficult to find someone in a store who speaks English and can understand and record my order, that fact is completely unrelated to any possibility that the ordered and properly recorded order will actually arrive. For example, the first time I tried this, I ordered “chicken breasts cut into cubes.” I said exactly that in English and in Arabic and the guy taking the order repeated it back to me. When it arrived, they had sent chicken bouillon cubes. I can sort of get the similarity but there is no way there is a “breast” meat option for bouillon cubes, nor is there any “cutting” involved so the guy should have thought twice when he checked the order.
Today, I ordered one kilo center-cut steak cut into small cubes separated into two Styrofoam packets of a half kilo each and one half-kilo of chicken breast cut into small cubes. Again, I went over the order with a guy who spoke very good English and just to be sure, I explained what I wanted in Arabic as well. I had a good feeling about ordering this time, as this is something people, even non-Arabic speaking people, do successfully all the time, but once again, Cairo served me right for getting my hopes up. The order was totally butchered. Pun intended!
According to the delivery boy there was apparently no chicken breast available today so they just didn’t bring any chicken at all. Instead of beef, they sent veal, which is a completely different word, and twice as expensive. The whole kilo was stuffed into one packet so I had to pull it out to freeze it in separate bags instead of just freezing it as is and the “small cubes” were slabs as big as my palm. If you order small cubes in person, they give you pieces about the size of a quarter. So with my dull crap veggie-cutting knife, I had to cut the veal into smaller and smaller pieces before I could freeze it. The knife was so dull it took like fifteen strokes of the blade to create one cube. Because it is veal instead of beef, I feel like I need to make it in a nice marinade or something because it would be totally wasted in a fajita or stir fry.
If anybody has any interesting meat recipes for grilling, baking, or tajine, hit me up!
