Leaving Box Mountain - One former big Law Lawyers story of career & lifestyle change... Towards more daily joy
By Helgi Maki
Almost 20 years ago, my law career began when I was an “articling student” sharing an office on the 29th floor of a tall office building in Toronto’s financial district overlooking Lake Ontario.
(For the Americans in the room, we Canadians usually need to do a student internship before being called to the bar.)
My BigLaw articling student class had shared offices. I liked my officemate right away. We cared about many of the same things. Drinking good coffee, travel, food that isn't boring, social justice and pondering the deeper meaning of daily life. Also, like me, law wasn’t his first job.
Within the first few weeks of daily jaunts to find the best coffee or the least boring lunch nearby, I noticed that my officemate had excellent taste in clothes. Particularly stylish shirts.
So I nicknamed him “Funky Shirt”.
Funky Shirt did me a favor that I’ll never forget, and brought to my awareness something I had been trying to avoid for a long time in my life. In return for my nickname, he didn’t give me a personal moniker. Instead he nicknamed my half of the office. He called it “Box Mountain”.
He wasn’t trying to be mean, but this nickname wasn’t meant to be entirely flattering. Box Mountain looked like a dilapidated fortress built by someone who had unpredictable access to supplies. It was back in the day when documents were often delivered in paper form rather than electronically. My office did not start out as columns of uneven, leaning boxes...stacked around the chair and desk so you could only see some part of my head. But within a few short months the work seemed to mushroom out of folders and piles so only boxes contained it somewhat.
As soon as the words left his mouth and hit my ears, at some level within myself I knew “Box Mountain” would not be a permanent place for me either literally or metaphorically. It wasn’t sustainable for me to sit all day at a desk...for decades... that was physically dwarfed by the uneven hillocks of (often repetitive) work that surrounded it. I knew that at some level, even if I didn’t know why. Even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself yet. I was far from that, and I held myself in denial.
Sometimes when working late, Funky Shirt and I would make bets on how many years we could sustain this amount of work. I liked the people I worked with and many of the skills I used daily like negotiation. But Box Mountain did not seem like it was likely to be a permanent fit with my own personal long term human habitation needs. Even though I had created that daunting pile of boxes myself.
This blog anonymizes identifying information. But I want to let you know that it’s inspired by real and complex people, plus difficult situations amid moments of happiness. And it includes real losses, stresses and sometimes even trauma. Just like life. If you keep reading I promise I intend to tell this story (and any story) through the lens of being hopeful and helpful for anyone facing challenges in life.
So this is where I’ll be very real and tell you about the first loss in this story.
I’m grateful to Funky Shirt for giving me the first glimmer that my way of working could not last indefinitely. I’m also grateful he was a rare soul who took his own advice. A few years later he found a work situation more closely aligned with his own life direction. I’m so glad he did that, because his life path was not nearly as long as anyone hoped. He was one of the first law colleagues of mine who died far before his time. He wasn’t yet 40. Life is truly short. I’m glad he chose to live it mindfully, in line with his own values and needs.
A huge gift of Funky Shirt’s friendship was to prompt me to allow instead of push away awareness of unsustainable situations in my work and life. I couldn’t look at the amount of work I took on in the same way after his nickname. Box Mountain gave me one of my first glimmers of awareness about my own work patterns and “career sustainability”. That he took his own advice, and that he left us too soon, made me take his comment even more seriously. I’m grateful for his insights, strength and friendship. Knowing him bolstered my courage to step more into the unknown. I dearly wish he was still here today.
You might ask yourself now, what’s showing signs of unsustainability in your own work or life? What casual comments do you receive about it? How long is it sustainable for?