As I stated in my “normal day” post, I often eat lunch alone. It was my chance to get away from the office, read the paper; just get away for a bit and recharge. Recently though, I’ve somehow fallen in with this insufferable group of “cool kids” who insist on eating lunch together every day.

My involvement with the group began rather innocently, one of the guys asked me if I had eaten at a newly opened restaurant near the office, which I hadn’t so I joined them. Now I find myself regularly eating $20-$30 lunches – and I’m not sure how to break it off with the group.

I actually don’t dislike any of the guys individually but once together it’s “I just bought this” or “I blew this much money at the club.” And look, I love stuff as much as the next guy – I even love talking about stuff, but these guys don’t even care about the stuff they bought – only that they spent money on it.

And if I have to hear another one of these guys introduce us to the waitress as – “Oh hi, we are lawyers, our office is nearby” – I’m going to off myself. Not to hate on another SubtleDig blogger but imagine a table full of Lifeat160 guys (except for the sake of accuracy, it’s more like Lifeat60).* It’s dreadful.

So I’ve been thinking about the proper “break-up” strategy. I want to stop going out to lunch, but still maintain some kind of friendship with a few of the guys. This week, I’m going to attempt to organize smaller groups (3-4 people) to go to cheaper restaurants (fast food, subway, etc). If I fail at this, I’m going to start playing the “I’m broke” card, which will be tough given that I might be the top earner of the group (meaning that we are all pretty much broke). I don’t know why I’m concerned about offending any of these guys…

* I actually like the Lifeat160 blog quite a bit.

Things I have been able to do since landing the big case that I had yet to do at work:

• Log on to Westlaw. Our cases use Pennsylvania law almost exclusively and I’ve used a smaller, less effective (and presumably cheaper) case database in the small amount of legal research I’ve done at the firm thusfar. I used Westlaw all the time in law school, but I had completely forgotten how powerful a tool Westlaw can be. I now have my own log-in name under the firm account, which for some reason, made me feel like a real lawyer.

• Call/use a copy service. We’ve already amassed a few thousand pages of documents, mostly miscellaneous records from the trucking company. Last Friday, I called in a copy crew who picked up the documents, copied and organized them, and returned them in these very cool looking document boxes. Signing the copy order was the first official document I’ve signed binding the firm to anything. However slight the responsibility was, I appreciated it.

• Be taken to lunch by a name partner. We went to a local, inexpensive restaurant, but I really enjoyed it. Sure, the partner was only interested in talking about the story of how I landed the case, but sharing war stories over a delicious bowl of pasta made me feel, again, like a real lawyer.

• Expense reimbursement. Though I’ve filed my mileage repeatedly when I go out on various firm activities, they’ve never approved my reimbursement requests. It has actually been a point of contention at the firm, with a number of associates complaining about the firm being stingy with reimbursements. Since I landed the case though, every trip I’ve made has yielded and awesome $.55 per mile!

• Less bullshit. I, occasionally, surf the internet while at work. Maybe five minutes of every hour. Used to, when a supervisor or boss would walk by and catch me, I would receive a stern, written warning in my box the next day. The last few times this has happened, no warning. In fact, I had a discussion with a supervisor about how much I love gmail when he saw me checking my personal email.

I’ll be doing this feature sporadically over the next year as the case progresses. Right now, we have set the initial case schedule and are somewhere in the middle of discovery. We have depositions coming up in the next month, which will hopefully yield a post or two.

My firm is pretty good about allowing the use of vacation days without prior notification, so when Val told me that her family had an empty timeshare going unused on Bald Head Island, I began packing immediately. Though I’m running a bit light in the cash department, given my recent successes and the free lodgings, I could not pass it up.

Despite everyone at the firm having July 3 off, the firm counted it against me in tabulating the vacation days I used for the trip. I was gone from July 1 to July 10. I’m officially out of vacation days.

The home was enormous. Five bedrooms, four bathrooms, huge kitchen + dining room combination, attached golf-cart garage (with golf-cart included) – simply incredible. Apparently Val’s parents shelled out almost 100 grand to use the property one month a year. Seems overpriced to me, but I’m not complaining.

Romantically, the vacation had it’s ups-and-downs. July 4th was wonderful – we watched a golf-cart parade, ordered takeout Italian and watched fireworks on the beach with a bottle of champagne. The next day, though, I wanted to lay on the beach with an icechest, but Val wanted to go into the little town area and shop – a major fight ensued. Fortunately, the close quarters pushed us to a relatively quick resolution. Some days, I convince myself that I need to put a ring on Val’s finger and grow up, yet others I shut her out completely. I’m still concerned that we are one fight away from ending the relationship. The vacation ended on a relationship high note though – with a photo of us kissing on the pier appearing in the Bald Head Island newsletter.

Waking for work today was very, very difficult – and since I didn’t get on the road until 8:00, traffic was miserable. Then, as I’m grabbing my bag from the trunk of my car, some jackass opens his car door right into the fender above my front left tire. The dent was immediately apparent.

The jackass stepped out of his car and was, of course, one of my supervisors. He insincerely says, “Oh sorry about that, how was your vacation?” Extremely pissed off, I was able to get through the conversation without screaming. I’m not sure if I’m going to get it fixed or not, I like my car but I’m not hyper-anal about it.

Check back soon for a more substantive post on the big case (and maybe a full writeup on the vacation).