Kiddo has another one of those show-and-tell sessions coming up this Friday. It is to be on a book she read. She has chosen Tolkien’s Hobbit. The props include a sword, a treasure box, and a key. We went shopping last weekend but what do you know – these aren’t everyday shopping items! So we asked around and got a toy sword from Justine (a Hooi’s son), and she put together some jewellery and coins to make up the treasure. I got tasked with making a sword. I don’t have a hammer, don’t have a furnace and certainly don’t have the muscles to whack a piece of metal to shape a sword. So I got a piece of cardboard. It is the one Vicroads used to wrap our new number plates in. After doing a few sketches of how the key should look and got kiddo to agree (it has to look ancient), I drew a shape of the key on the cardboard, cut it out and wrapped the thing in foil. It looked passable for a large key, large enough and looked close enough to one of those to unlock medieval castle dungeons. I thought the job was done but last night she reminded me of the finishing bit – I had to print runes on the key! Those elvan letters which Tolkien dreamt up (and he didn’t do pot) somehow must end up on a foil finished cardboard key, and I’m Mr Smith! Schools in Melbourne can be fun you see, and not just for the kids either!

I guess that has been one of the highlights of our move here – the involvement with our kid’s school work and their lives generally. We have talked so much more, every morning at breakfast, and then again before we left home, when we’d say a quick prayer together. We talked again when we got home from work, when we do the cooking. We’d talk some more during dinner, and we’d talk again as we unwind for the day and watch some tv.

Often it takes effort. We’d be tired both in the morning as well as at night but we make ourselves talk to kiddo, listen to her (and make her talk slower) and try and understand what her day has been. When we make the effort however, it is often good. The talk itself can also be painful, as when we work out some problems, but we are communicating and that’s something we did a lot less in Malaysia. I guess we were just too occupied with too many activities when we were there.

This is the second day of the second week I have had to struggle to fill up my time sheet. That is the bane of professional practice. The time sheet has been many lawyers’ most hated piece of office stationery since legal practice became sufficiently institutionalised to warrant a tracking of how lawyers spend their time in the course of a workday. Of course Mr W Gates has taken the time sheet from the top of our desk and put it on our desktop (or in my previous firm in KL, on the laptop/notebook) but that only meant an empty time sheet can be seen not just by the idle lawyer but also by his employer, and at the same time!

As a law clerk gaining accreditation credits, I can only do work which is given to me. I cannot actively solicit work from sources outside the firm. Even if I can, as a new migrant, that is a serious obstacle. I know very few people in Melbourne, certainly very few who can be sources of legal work.

The formula is simple. Give me more files with substantive work and you will see a well buffed time sheet! I have been telling the boss I need more work but it is almost like being asked to make bricks without straw. No, the boss is far from Ramses number whatever as the evil Pharaoh – he’s actually very ambivalent for a law firm principal, frequent “outbursts” notwithstanding. But I hate empty time sheets as well. I want to see mine filled. But I can’t weave magic. I need straws. I have been doing a steady stream of simple property transfers, accident claims, traffic summonses and other equally exciting stuff like these which don’t make strong bricks. A couple of substantive commercial litigation matters have run into a lull period.

This issue is a recurring one and would never ever go away. That was a reason why I have always veered towards in-house work, even when I was able to source my own work and fill those wretched sheets. I cannot stand being dictated by those columns and rows every single hour of my working week. I cannot go on working this system with 100% conviction that I am doing the best thing with my life. I abhor charging 6 minutes for 1 minutes’ work. I abhor measuring my productivity and usefulness in 6-minute blocks for the entire day. I hate it when people dread calling me on the telephone because they can hear the stop watch clicking “start” when they do, and they hurry telephone conversations along as the ticking of the stop watch gets ever louder and rip ever bigger holes in their pockets. I have noticed friendly clients stop calling me after they get their first bill, when they realised these telephone conversations with me, which they had enjoyed, cost them a fortune. It is almost like dialling one of those commercial call-in services. Sort of puts a twist of being called the world’s second oldest profession.

Having said all that, I guess I will soldier on, cop the lean weeks, and let the boss decide what he must. I have come to trust God for my needs and I trust He will provide. He will either help me fill my time sheets, or let me contribute in some other ways here, or find me somewhere else to do work in. While I will do what I can to avert dire situations, I know no matter what I do and how hard I try, I can only truly succeed if I trust in God completely. That success can come in or out of a law firm, or in or out of an in-house legal department, or in or out of a business venture. It is all up to Him to lead. I will pursue what I think I must but I acknowledge His sovereignty.