That Sinking Feeling

I am completely in a tizzy. I just got the gentle reminder from Outlook: T-15 minutes until my "short meeting" with a partner to "see where we are on billable hours, workload and fee allocations". Ugh.

This was the most loathed meeting of my previous employer (mostly because my assesssment in the three categories was very bad, my fault, and very bad). I'd be hauled into a small conference room, surrounded by 3 smiling faces, all asking how'd I get to be such a putz. All refusing to consider that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't working lots of hours because I didn't have work to do.

Oh, I accepted my share of lazy and distracted, but they never accepted their share of the business development issue. That was my fault too because I should have spent all that time I wasted pumping breastmilk for my newborn or discussing the issues of the day with my peers (read: bullshitting) developing exciting marketing strategies. Marketing strategies that they would, in turn, reject -- believe me. Been there, done that.

But that ain't the case here. Due in part to the new employee billable hours honeymoon I'm enjoying, I'm at 177.1% of my expected billable hours -- I could take a month off and still be ahead of the game.

And I brought a huge, significant client with me. Maybe not huge, but definitely significant. I've been totally busy because of this Co. And they like that I've done this.

So why am I panicking? Because I cannot imagine that the sum of this meeting will be, "Great job, Fran! Keep up the good work." It can't possibly be, because otherwise I'll be expecting to hear about a big raise next month.

I don't know what the criticism of my "hours, workload and allocations" will be, so I can't prepare a rebuttal in advance.

Oy. Five minutes left. Time to brush my hair, reapply lipstick and head to the bathroom to make sure my collar isn't sitting funny.