Jane is thrilled by the St Paul’s protest camp. She has been gathering leaflets and leaving them around the office, ‘For personal reflection.’  It hasn’t worked; we’re all still as stressed out and uptight as ever and the cleaners throw them away at the end of every evening.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit of a contradiction,” Alex asks her, “Working for a City law firm and supporting the protest against capitalism?”

“Not at all,” she shakes her head. “We’re both working for the same thing; it’s just that I am trying to bring about destruction of the system from the inside.”

“Protesting about the loss of the biscuit allowance is not quite the same as advocating the destruction of western fiscal civilisation.”

“It’s a start.”

Meanwhile, I have devised a plan to ensure that I go on secondment and cover my work back at the office. It’s called; Work the Weekend. Knowing that I will be out of the office on Monday, I have decided to spend the whole of Saturday (and Sunday, if necessary) at my desk.

“Are you mad?” asks Liz.  “You can’t give up all your weekends for the next six months, you will collapse.”

“Then what do you propose?”

“Well,” she ponders this. “If you can’t give it away to your peers, you’ll have to delegate it to people less fortunate than yourself.”

“Such as?”

“The trainees or the paralegals.”

“That’s not very fair on them.”

“Life isn’t fair,” she shrugs. “Besides both groups should be desperate to impress: the trainees want to be qualified lawyers and the paralegals want to be trainees; they won’t fail to help you.”

But they do.

“You want me to take over your cases for you, whilst you are on secondment?” Natasha looks at me as if I have just asked her to take my place on a tour of Afghanistan.

“Only for two days a week,” I explain. “And I will be contactable all the time.”

“What sort of cases have you got?”

“Some financial disputes, a few contractual claims, some professional indemnity work and a taxation appeal.”

The weighs this up.  It obviously isn’t exciting enough for her. “I don’t think I’ll have the time,” she tells me, “I’m very busy with all the work for Malcolm and Clive and I have rowing training four times a week. There’s no way I could do all that and cover for you, sorry!

“Fine,” I tell her. “I’m sure Dominic will be more responsive.”  And less fixated with becoming an Olympic rower!

But he isn’t.

“Sorry Helen,” he smiles, “But I can’t take on anything else at the moment; I have three PSC courses coming up and then I’ve got two mediations with Miranda.”

“Well, what about after those have finished?” I am not giving up so easily this time.

“Then I’m going to Australia for a month.”

Australia! For a month! My last holiday was a long weekend in Brighton….

“How did you manage that?” I ask him.

“Just asked Alistair,” he grins, “He was fine with it.  He’s a really cool bloke. You’re lucky to have him as a boss.”

“You might think differently if you were permanent employee,” I tell him. “It’s not all training courses and holidays then you know.”

“Really?”

“No, its responsibility and hard work!” Oh lord, I sound like my mother. But it’s true: trainees these days don’t know they are born!

Feeling very old and cynical, I try Hamish as a last resort.

“Am afraid, as you know, I have been granted special permission to remain in Litigation for a further seat only because I am vital to the preparation of the Thermexol case.”

“I know that,” I nod. The whole firm knows that, “But it isn’t going to trial for four months, surely you could fit a little extra in between; it would be good for you to widen your spread of work.”

“I agree that it would be advantageous to broaden my skill base,” he nods, “But I’m afraid Tarquin has told me that I am not allowed to take on anything else without his permission. You will have to speak to him.”

I have no intention of speaking to Tarquin; we all know that hell will freeze over before he allows Hamish to help me. Instead, I move on to Plan B: ask the paralegals.

“Would any of you lovely people like to oversee a few cases for me whilst I go on secondment?” I ask. “It would be really great experience for you.”

“I would love to help you,” Sarah tells me, “But I’m afraid I’ve just handed my notice in; I’m going to do charity work in India.”

“Gosh,” I nod, “That’s great news, but are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay here and help the Save the Helen fund?”

“Sorry!” She laughs; thinking I am joking but I’m not.

“I don’t think I can help either,” Adam apologises, “I have only just started my legal practice course. I’m really allowed to get involved with any complex tasks.”

“Nonsense!” I dismiss this with a wave of my arm. “These are not complex. You don’t need qualifications to run cases; just good, old fashioned common sense.”

“He doesn’t have any of that,” Sarah laughs. “We went him to the Bear Garden at the Royal Courts of Justice last week; he really thought it was a garden – for bears.”

“I did not think there were any bears there!” he protests. “Not real ones, anyway. I thought they might be made of stone; like statues.”

“A garden, filled with bear statues, in the middle of The RCJ?”

“Well, you never know!”

To be fair, there are much weirder things than that in there.

But it doesn’t really help me solve my dilemma.  “Leaving that aside,” I smile, “Would you be able to help me out with these cases? It’s only a couple of days a week.”

“Which days?”

“Mondays and Tuesdays.”

“Ah, really sorry,” he shakes his head. “But those are the days I go to law school. Milly might be able to help, you should ask her.”

I do, but she can’t help either because she’s about to have an operation on her knee. There is nobody left to ask.

“It wasn’t like this when I was a junior,” I grumble to Melinda. “I wasn’t allowed time off for operations and courses; I didn’t take holidays and I wouldn’t have dreamt of saying no to a senior lawyer!”

“Perhaps that’s the trouble,” she offers. “You have high expectations of yourself, so you expect the same in others.”

That’s not true: I have very low expectations of her. And she still never fails to disappoint.

“It is nothing to do with my expectations of myself,” I sniff. “It is other people’s expectations of me that I have to live up to. But no one else seems to have the same trouble.”

“You set high standards,” she says, “So they expect more. Try being lazier; slack off a bit.  It might make them expect less.”

“But I can’t,” I shake my head. “It’s not fair on our clients and the partners will kill me.”

“But what do you think they would rather have?” she persists. “A relaxed, chilled out lawyer who works reasonable hours or a stressed, clapped out lawyer who never sleeps?”

We all know the answer to that.