Actual comment from my partner last week - even if there is a third wave, we have to appreciate that there is hardly going to be any real impact on our lawyers health wise, seeing as the entire office is vaccinated. Don't know what to call this but sheer idiocy. Since when did lawyers become health experts? And why disrupt a wfh system that is working seamlessly for all involved? I get that there are pros and cons to wfh, but have people forgotten exactly how hellish things got early last year, with so many people at the minimum having lost relatives/first degree acquaintances to the pandemic? These MPs better take full responsibility not just for their lawyers' lives and health but for every lawyer's family's as well.

My firm just sent an email saying office is now again voluntary aka shut, and associates will need to produce negative covid tests to enter.

I don't understand why this sudden about turn, after remarking that educated people are being unnecessarily paranoid. Why after, making everyone move their lives this move? Why after saying that we have to live with the virus this move to shut down? Why after making all those grandiose declarations this tail between the legs?

No sir. You better have office on 3 or more days a week for everyone, including yourself. Why be paranoid? If you get covid, it's because you partied. Just isolate, as is the premises are preemptively sanitized a la Minority Report.

Also, who's gonna leave you if you do it for a month?

Nahi, hum 15 days ka extension denge each time and then renew it every 15 days - so that you live with as much uncertainty as the anxiety that we already give you with work. Retainers and peace of mind? Lol no, I am Cyril Bin Tughlaq.

I swear mate. I am so done with this farce of a place. The most annoying part of all this, is the pretence and virtue signaling.
Absolutely 0 concern for the inconvenience caused, 0 rationale for opening offices other than "this will not work". And guess what, I don't see any difference between pre and post pandemic. In fact it's worse.

Feels like an ego issue, where somebody wants to impose their personal biases and preferences on the world. When every other firm and all of China didn't want to open so soon, we wanted to be ahead of the curve. We'll guess what, we're ahead of the curve indeed, that curve is going up now..

No more sir. After spending 5 years here, this straw has really broken the camel's back. I'm out.

In a rising curve,when you get ahead of it you drop right off...like dropping off a cliff.People and employers especially will babble anything,you got to look out for yourself and your family.......like many who walked away from the just not worth BS.If the Pandemic teaches one thing,its that live well now(instead of bearing misery causing overlords and law firm brands in possible hope of a bright career or future) because well kal ho na ho.

See,China knows very well how deadly the wuhan or Covid virus and its variants are.Thats why it makes such strict lockdowns.All over now there is narrative being peddled about Omicron being mild and how it doesnt lead to hospitalization or death with only concern being transmissibility.This is what was peddled in 2020 about Covid that hardly 1 percent fatality or death rate etc etc. And see how deadly it turned out, so many people died in 2020 and how much worse it got in second wave.When will these uneducated partners and seniors and owner idiots of law firms learn?And even if people dont die Long Covid takes away half the life.But law firms will never learn,because they dont want to.All they care for is money,money.The retainers be damned.

The day someone is hospitalized or dies due to COVID, I'm filing an FIR and a case against the managing partner. I don't care how much legal ground I have to win, the point is to publicly call them out for a being d*ck. Give them as much bad PR as possible.

I also don't care what the consequences to my job are, I'm anyway going to quit.

Mind you - this attitude of A0s and A1s is the biggest reason for opening up of offices. The A0s who were onboarded last year are just not willing to learn and come up to the mark. Repeating same mistakes again and again. I actually told the SAs to plan to start visiting the office and start training the A0s.

You guys seem to be taking jobs and your seniors on an adventure ride. Please start showing some seriousness.

Well, I'm very serious when I say that I'm in this for the money (Money not spent is money saved, you get the drift).

Of course, I'll try to keep my work neat and tidy so you don't fire my ass.

No offense (and I'm asking this with an open-mind), but I really don't get what's there to learn? A lot of it seems like grunt work (at least at the A0 level). Making contract summaries, basic research, preparing DD tables, etc. How will my physical presence in the office help?

Hahaha

Kco has that 'first names' policy. I presume it is in place to encourage (rational and reasonable) disagreement and 'level the field' to create a positive work environment. OP seems to indicate that despite me calling them by their first names, they'll try to boss me around as if this was law school all over again. Doesn't seem like a positive work environment lol (although I had a fun time at my internship, everyone was really warm and welcoming).

(Hope OP is not in my team if they think they'll continue with this attitude lol)

The problem is how to scale you up. There's more to work than making DD tables and contract summaries. Right now, you're working pretty transactionally, i.e. do given work and that's it. But how to make you go beyond these things in learning to make you do more, to make you ready for the larger pieces of things. There's some part of learning which happens by just being present and observing things, discussing issues etc. And that's what this batch is missing.

The 15 days updates is causing a lot of anxiety in a world where anxiety is in over supply, instead of helping lessen the anxiety this is adding to it. Well they might genuinely believe that reopening is for the best, but this is on the same lines as drinking sea water when stranded in the ocean - yes drink sea water when thirsty when it will eventually kill me - it is for the worse! Leaving believes aside and personal ego (if that is remotely possible) can the decision be made on more practical factors - whether clients are being serviced without too much dip in the expectations, whether the talent pool is being pushed / put at extra risk, whether the talent has the necessary support system to function and focus only on work (FYI - not all of us have 3 cooks, 4 drivers, 3 secretaries, 1 dedicated dosa chef, 5 cleaners, 1 zoom assistant, 10 “yes” men and women and all, nor do we have access to Mukesh bhai’s super speciality hospital - in case we need medical help), wether we really need to be ahead of curve on reopening offices.

Also the constant need to be ahead of the curve on such things makes it feel like an organization is run like a dictatorship that cares only to satisfy one person’s ego and one person’s insecurities and any resistance to the orders means we suddenly are fat and we need to be cut. Fat - both literal and figurative can cause damage. Making the entire 5th floor yours and making it less risky for yourself isnt the same as loading more people on to the other floors.