Still, on cloud 9 from her honeymoon, Attorney Amanda deals with the reality of returning to the office and figuring out ways to suppress her stress.
Running or even being a part of a small law firm means that you have to deal with so many different tasks and objectives on your own. This is one of the reasons why attorneys find going on vacations can be stressful.
But returning from a relaxing trip shouldn’t mean a giant headache the first week back, in this week’s #FollowAttorneyAmanda, Amanda talks about how even though her partner did a fantastic job holding down the firm, she was still overcome by some unwanted stress.
Video Transcript
Hi, I’m Attorney Amanda Shaffer. I have just gotten back from my honeymoon, which is I think the longest time I’ve ever been away from the office. So I was quite nervous to come back since as a law firm with only one other attorney and no other employees, there’s only not too many people to continue the work when I’m gone. Luckily, my partner, Aaron, has done a fantastic job. I did not come back to a pile on my desk as he had promised me. There’s still a lot to do now if it looks different behind me than my other videos is because I did get to finally move into my new office with my window. I’ll give a quick tour. It’s not completely done yet. I haven’t put everything up, but It is so – it feels so much nicer and bigger and airier. So it’s crazy sometimes how much eight square feet, how much bigger that can feel. But it’s all about the window so I feel – I was nervous about coming back since I missed so much, but I was excited because I get my new office. I have to – as I said, it’s still got a few things and make it clean it up a bit but it feels great to be here.
I’m still in the process of catching up on all my emails and making sure everybody’s been replied to. It’s always difficult when you go away, especially when everybody knows you’re coming back today. I’ve already had a bunch of people hitting me up saying, “Oh, you’re back. Congratulations on been back.” So there’s a little bit of stress I’m trying to suppress at this moment. Aaron wanted me to do something when I got back immediately, something he had been working on, I had no idea about. I got very frustrated just because I’m like, “Hey, I ‘d feel better if I can catch up on everything.” So he agreed that it was good to first catch up, get some things out that are easy to get out, and then even this #FollowAttorneyAmanda video blog has come out since I’ve been away. Incredibly excited about that. I want to be able to advertise it myself. So like I said, there’s a lot to do, and Aaron, the first thing he says to me is, “Oh, I have a good video blog topic. Let’s talk about – we do immigration – so let’s talk about the people that keep calling saying that they can get their cases to reopen.”
A lot of – there’s been a lot of attorneys claiming that it’s as easy as pie to reopen a case, so when I was gone, he got a lot of calls, which is a fantastic idea. I’m so excited that he has a topic in mind. He’s going to do it, but because it’s a big topic we’re going to wait to do it next week. Now I have to make a graphic for it and advertise it so I’m trying my best to stay calm. Remember the Caribbean breeze and the calm of the Caribbean waters so that I don’t go nuts since it’s only my first day back. But, of course, there’s a lot of – a lot that I missed. However, if you do have good help, even if it’s just one other person, if they can keep things running, I don’t have to respond to all the new clients that have hit us up since – it does make your life easier. So I’m a naturally anxious person which is why I like to just kind of bang everything out, get my responses out, so it bothers me when I see all these messages, I still have to reply to, but if there’s anything I was practicing over my break, which was to handle things better so that the stress doesn’t get to me.
So I’m going to do my best and respond to people. And I can’t wait to start with my back with, up with my social media because I did shut it down – not shut it down. Everything is still up, but I didn’t do anything new since I went away. Aaron didn’t have time to, but we still got the calls. So that’s another positive thing. But I need to get going again. So that is all today for #FollowAttorneyAmanda. I’m back from my vacation ready to get back to where I was. So I’ll be back next week with another topic. Thanks for watching.
