Well I retired (early, thank you! <g>) years ago, but I ticked law because before that I worked as a legal court clerk for a firm of solicitors in Glasgow.
It was a great job; basically I was left to work on my own. Even better when, as time went on, I became the only one who really understood what I was doing - even my bosses would just leave me to it, rather than try and figure it out.
Which makes for terrific job security.
Although, the downside is you don't get a decent vacation break in ten years.
I had a junior assistant to do the 'scut work' and the boring bits, like binding writs and typing out litigation forms, while I did the complicated stuff, drafting the legal documents and liasing with the courts.
The only downside was that it was mostly litigation cases. Chasing debts for large companies, utilities like BT and electric/gas companies, banks etc. And so, since our clients interests came first, I could never be as sympathic to the debtors as I was instinctively inclined to be. :p True there were a lot of chancers, who'd give you a sob story over the phone as to why they hadn't paid up, but there were genuine hardship cases, too. I spent a lot more of my time than I was supposed to surreptitiously working things to ease the pressure on the debtors as much as I could without damaging our clients' interests. Which was a bit of a juggling act!
Before that, I worked for ten years as an assistant librarian in local libraries. Now that would have been the perfect job (an endless supply of free books to read! <g>) - if it hadn't been for them being mean and letting the public in.
Messing up my nice neat and tidy alphabetical rows of books. Tsk.
All of which is a far cry from what I actually planned my life to be. All through school I was adamant that I was never going to spend nine to five in a stuffy office, typing. I refused to take the secretarial courses that 99% of my female colleagues took, back then. (We were in the days when it seemed natural that most females leaving school would take secretarial positions).
Nope. Nothing boring like that for me. I was going to work outdoors. Preferably 'with animals'.
Ah, well. The best laid plans of rats and women, as they say... :rolleyes: I guess it didn't work out too badly, all the same. I was lucky with both positions to work with a great bunch of people and have some fond memories of the fun we had.
LabRat
