family business

No, not the reality show about former pornstar Seymore Butts and his family’s affiliations with the adult film industry and the smut-related adventures that deemed the show fit for television.

I’m talking about the fact that I’m working for my father now– it’s not necessarily a family business, in a sense, but it’s business, and we’re keeping it locked down on the Steen front.

Yes. I have returned to the city of concrete yards, giant malls (closed on Easter Sunday) and brown, brown earth. (Seriously, I took the green-ness of Vancouver for granted, big time). I have also returned to my former place of employment. Not for the first time.

Not twice, nor three times.

This is my 7th time coming back to the firm.

Granted, most of those times were summer positions (oh the dreaded summer job at the office) and I didn’t exactly quit every time– the summer just ran out and it was expected that you’d be back the following year.

It wasn’t fun work, most of the time: I spent a good 3 months one summer (2003) amassing a mountain of closed files for review, probably inhaling carcinogenic levels of dust and cementing two fantastic friendships for life in the process. I’ve been a court runner, a paralegal, an office clerk. I’ve been receptionist and secretary– stood around the office cooler and helped with Corporate Challenge.

And now I’m back.

It doesn’t help (or does it?) that most of the lawyers have known me since I was in diapers; I’ve grown up with the firm, been babysat by partners’ children and have done lots of babysitting myself.

I haven’t been around the firm for over 5 years. It’s weird. So many new faces and still so many familiar ones; the brain is so funny, how is it that you can remember the name of someone you barely knew from half a decade ago but you can’t remember what you ate for lunch last week?

Everyone keeps coming up to me and telling me it’s so good to have me back, or conversely, expressing disbelief. (Guess I went out guns blazing last time. Oops.)

Are there any of you out there in blog-readership-land who have similar experiences? I’m sure my fellow partners’ kids have the same stories as me (Andy, good for you for getting out). I feel like this firm is going to haunt me for the rest of my life, as if I’m destined to spend the rest of my life working there. I could creep out all the file clerks– “I used to be a clerk just like you, and now I’m a crotchety old bitch lawyer, bitter from my decades in the office!”

Don’t get me wrong: I’m very happy to work there right now. I can’t express this enough, I am grateful for this position. I have the ability to help out my dad when he really needs it, and I had a job waiting for me back home, no questions asked. It’s Monday to Friday, 9-5 (with optional OT) and coming from the last four years of retail, I couldn’t be happier with that schedule.

I just feel like I’ve taken a giant step backward. As if somehow I’ve gone in reverse and the last five years of my life didn’t happen. Like this law firm is actually a hot-tub time machine and I’ve gone back to 2002 and am just a summer student trying to pay for jeans.

I keep reminding myself that this is temporary, a step on my way to finding my new and improved career. But it’s hard when you can still remember how to open files and how to butter up the lady in accounting so she’ll do your cheques sooner rather than later. Getting used to the firm is like riding a bike! So much so, in fact, that I feel stupid when I have to ask questions like how to dial out long distance and charge it to the file or how to– sorry, I won’t bore you with office talk.

Today the paralegal across from me asked me what I was doing before I came back (although I’m new to her; she has only been around for 6 months) and it felt like a lifetime away.

“Um, well, I was living in Vancouver, and I was a makeup artist.” The words felt foreign in my mouth. I didn’t know what else to say. Lucky for me she didn’t ask how I ended up at point b from point a.

And I miss that life, sort of. Blair went to Update today, which was always my favorite day. I’m slowly starting to forget how much I hated about that job.

Which I guess, in a way, is how I’m back at the law firm.

So thank goodness for the family business, for giving me a job and for welcoming me with open arms.

And thank god that my family business isn’t in porn.

Awkward!

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