Billing

I feel like my mind is chained to my desk. We are supposed to bill at least 7.5 to 8 hours a day to clients, in 6 minute increments. Obviously, you can't bill lunch, bathroom time, coffee beaks, chats with your secretary about her weekend, etc. If it's not actually productive time that you would ask a client to pay for, you can't bill it. That's fair, but to actually bill 7.5 hours you have to be in the office for at least 10 to 12 hours. That's a long day. And the trouble is, I can't concentrate. So it's 3:00 and I've billed exactly 2.6 hours. I should have done that by lunch time. I've got at least 5 more hours to bill today which means that if I think of nothing but work - literally - for the next 5 hours I might actually meet my goal for the day. That is, if I don't go to the bathroom, don't get hungry and go looking for a snack, don't take my husband's afternoon phone call, don't think about what I'm going to have for dinner tonight, don't send that email to my girlfriends to plan our next girls' weekend, and don't buy my tickets for New York next weekend, I might not start the day with a deficit. Great.

And still, it's 3:00 and my current task is nearly impossible because my partner barely explained it to me before rushing off to meetings. He won't be free until at least 5:30 today to answer my questions, which means whether I make my hours or not it will be at least 7:00 today before I can even consider going home. By that time I will surely not care a rip whether I make my hours for the day or not. And that's early, by firm time, but it still sucks. I'm tired. My head hurts. I'm bored with this damn opinion letter and don't' have enough information to do it right anyway. My other client is acting like an *&$D! and blaming me for his oversights. So instead of sitting here and staring out the window with utter abandon I am typing out this note so that I will remember to post it tonight, hoping that by merely getting my thoughts out on paper so they stop spinning around in my head I'll be able to concentrate more. As if this will make the opinion letter more interesting somehow. Here's hoping...

So much for that. It's 9:30 and I've finally gotten home, fed the dog, got some dinner and am now "relaxing." I left the office at 7:00 and billed exactly 6.1 hours. That's a minimum of 1.4 to make up tomorrow...