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You may have worked in your time with few hours of sleep and absolutely no work–life balance. A lot of things that were considered “normal” back then are neither normal nor acceptable today. That does not mean we should be expected to repeat the same.
All that no sleep has fried your brain cells, especially the ones that deal with communication, because clearly you can’t communicate the end point of the deliverable or the instructions.
We want to have at least some sort of work–life balance on some days.
Stop blaming Gen Z. The real issue is poor management and lack of proper delegation. Work is dumped without proper guidance, and when it is completed based on whatever understanding we manage to piece together, we are abused for not doing it “correctly.” Then the same people complain about being called toxic on Legally India . What did you expect? Tariff karu? Arti Utaru?
If I knew everything at an A0 level, I would not be on your team, I would be training you on how to manage and train juniors.
It is high time seniors learn how to properly train and delegate work. You cannot just drop tasks on juniors and expect them to magically figure everything out.
The Partner berates the PA, the PA does the same to the SA, and the SA then takes it out on the associates.
This trickle-down toxicity makes no sense.
No guidance, want everything in one day Or a few hours, and then blatantly say we extract only money and work from you. As if we are your slaves!
Proper delegations/ instructions, etc are all fine. But if I have to teach you basic word skills or correct grammar- that’s a serious issue.
I mean you talk about professional environment and behave like a kid yourself, if I mess up. Come tell me about it, I think we should discuss it, no matter how bad, so that I know not to make it next time.
Apka friend, husband yaa family nhi hoon jo, silent treatment doge mreko :/
This problem is absolutely true. At the fundamental level, the lack of sleep and work life balance causes these SAs, PAs, and partners to become lazy bosses and mentors.
They give lazy instructions and have absolutely no inclination or aptitude to be mentors. I remember a senior millennial boss of mine, expected A0s to know everything right out of law school. Chutiya himself didn't know law properly, and I now know gave wrong legal opinions. (Pls don't censor chutiya fully pls.) He didn't last long in the practice, and now sells snake oil - iykyk.
Make sure you do not commit the same mistake when you lead a team. When you are approaching partnership, its easy to fall into the trap of revenue pressures, trying to overload a team with new associates to keep costs low and snapping frequently because work quality drops. Finding the balance, mentoring your colleagues and leading with emotional maturity is a tricky task which takes time to develop. As will you.
I try my best to do all this but often do fail. All I can say is, introspect as much as possible and then come to what is a balanced and good decision for you and how you develop as a person/leader in the future. Its the only way we can change the frequent toxicity we find in this profession. Not by running away from it.
What I have seen with new partners overloading a team of new associates is lack of communication is mostly with respect to deliverables. You can’t expect a team of freshers to take up a deal end to end. You need to define the scope of work for them atleast in the first 6-7 months before they can jump into matters independently.
I had a newly promoted partner and his A0s left within 3 months because of this issue only, no properly defined scope
In fact, in my view it makes sense to learn the ropes in-house and move laterally to a law firm much later in life if you want the money, when the stress is less physical and more mental. Strangely people start at law firms, give their youth to it, and when it comes time to reap the benefits at partner level, get burned out and move in-house. Never made sense to me.
All the best.