Fridays at work are always the best of days as well as the worst of days. The best because the work week is almost over. The worst because time seems to crawl even more slowly while I’m watching the clock closer than I usually do.

 

At 4:30, I send a message to my best friend Brittany like I usually do on Fridays, through the law firm’s chat app, Slack. She works here too— in fact, she’s worked here longer than I have and she’s the reason I got the job.

 

30 min to HHD, is what my Slack message says.

 

“HHD” is an inside joke of ours, because on the surface it stands for “happy hour drinks,” but, to us, it also stands for Hell Hole Departure. We can never wait to exit the building so that the work week can turn into the weekend.

 

At least that’s how it usually is, but Brittany must be working hard lately trying to climb the corporate ladder. She hasn’t responded to my Slack messages all day and I don’t know if it’s because she’s afraid a partner will see our banter, or if it’s because she’s busy working on some litigation cases that have heated up. I try to stay away from those, because, unlike Brittany, I’m not hankering for any more responsibility. Responsibility translates to more work, and I just do this gig to pay the bills, not because I want to be some rising star legal assistant.

 

Brittany, though, has risen from legal assistant to paralegal here at the firm, and she has plans to go to law school. I have to admit she’d make a great attorney because she can be a real bulldog. Or shark. Or whatever predator lawyers are usually compared to. Me, though, I’m too ADHD to survive law school and too nice to be a lawyer. I’d probably want to pass a plate of cookies to opposing counsel during a trial, and ask them if we can’t all just find some way to compromise and work things out.

 

At 4:45, I think about, but resist Slacking Brittany again. Part of me wonders if the partners are gathered in her office, strategizing some big part of their upcoming trial, and is worried that they’ll see it if I send her a message saying, “let’s get out of here already!” Another part of me is feeling guilty about being such a bad employee, and telling myself I need to take this job more seriously, like Brittany does.

 

I have to talk myself out of the guilt by reminding myself that I put in a good forty hours a week and sometimes I even go above and beyond the call of duty. Like the time I ran home to let Melissa Garber borrow a pair of my hose because she had gotten a very obvious run in hers the day she had a big hearing to argue, and she and I are the only ladies in the whole firm who can’t buy size “regular” tights because they’re too small, but also can’t buy “tall and curvy” because we’re certainly not tall. We need something more along the lines of “short and curvy.”

 

Since I had a whole stock of hose I’d special ordered from Plump Princesses when I first started this job— and since I’d given up on wearing them a long time ago because they’re annoyingly uncomfortable and all we assistants do is sit behind a desk all day, where no one can even see our legs— I’d raced home on the subway, raced back while carrying the whole box along with me, and donated them to her cause. I’m all too familiar with the scenario of needing an extra item of clothing and not knowing where to get it due to stores not carrying my size, so, sparing the second year lawyer the embarrassment of having to show up in court pantyhose-less was the least I could do.

 

By the time I next look at the clock, it’s only 4:55. Damn it. Five long more minutes left.

 

I’ve always been told that time passes more slowly when you watch the seconds tick by, but it’s hard not to when your only other option is doing soul sucking work. By 4 pm on a Friday, most of the work is done anyway, since the partners are on the golf course and the associates have taken their work home with them, so they can at least be in the comfort of their own studio apartments while getting in the rest of their required weekly billable hours—which will take them all weekend to do. (I have no clue why anyone would want to be a lawyer. I’m always asking Brittany, but her answer includes power, status and Coach purses— three things I’m not familiar with in the least.) 

 

So, due to the lack of said soul sucking work or enough time to start on it even if I’m given it, Friday afternoons are always the most boring of all. I used to pass the time by filling up the pages of my sketchbook, but I got a bit suspicious of a veteran co-worker popping his head into my cubicle every time I cracked it open, so I resorted to just watching the clock. I don’t know if he was trying to get a good look at my drawings or if he was planning to rat me out to my supervisors, but this job pays my bills, so I chose to stop drawing at work so as not to risk my regular paychecks.

 

Finally, it’s five pm. Time to walk myself through those spotless glass double doors and head home. I hastily gather my stuff from my tiny desk and speed-walk towards the exit. A flurry of co-workers whiz by me— everyone else is as anxious to head home for the weekend as I am, and I can’t blame them. A few work friends bid me farewell, but I only respond with a quick head nod, afraid that if I talk to them, one of them might ask me if I have a spare moment this weekend to summarize a deposition or transcribe a letter that a partner dictated.

 

Right when I’m almost to the door, I notice Brittany but she doesn’t notice me. She’s walking down a hallway opposite from the one I’m in that leads to the exit. She’s being led by a hand extending out from a suit jacket sleeve— all I can make out about it is that it’s a man’s hand. The poor thing must have been called to a meeting by a partner, which can only mean she has to work this weekend on some last minute urgent project. Better her than me, I guess, since she’s the one who dreams of litigation stardom and I just want to get home to a bubble bath and my cat Lucy.

 

I decide to keep going, because she’s undoubtedly too busy for me to interrupt by saying goodbye. Plus, it doesn’t matter whether or not I say goodbye to her right now because I'll be seeing her this weekend— at least, that is, if whatever new project she’s probably being given right now won’t take up all of her time. So, I keep moving forward, towards freedom. Once I’m out of the building, I step out of my heels, quickly replace them with the much comfier ones I carry with me in my bag, and sprint towards the subway stop. Free at last. At least until Monday morning rolls around.