It's Over. The Summer Program Comes to an End - 2020 Reflections

It’s July 31st, 2020, and four very full weeks of programming, but it’s finally here: the last day of our first ever virtual summer program. My overall (and biased) perspective is that it went very, very well. Especially considering this was our first time ever running a virtual program and there were a lot of unknowns that we all had to navigate constantly. Through it all, we still somehow managed to keep the summer associate’s need for connection and communication forefront in our minds and our program.

It’s definitely different to go through a summer program virtually.

Having been so thrilled by remote work, I didn’t think I would feel the impact quite as much as I did. Although most of our programming transferred better to the virtual environment than many had feared, things that were not programmed just disappeared. Those things were the small touches of communication that happen when you’re sharing the same space. Things like directing people to the bathroom, making small talk as we wait for people to file into the conference room, listening to conversations as we line up to get a meal, and all those random instances when you see people briefly in the hallways or other common spaces like the cafeteria.

I found that I missed those things.

More than that, I found that those small tangential conversations had been a lot of what I relied on to develop a sense of who these students were over the summer; particularly because in my role as an assistant, I really didn’t have any other kind of communication with them. But none of that was programmed, so my only sense of these students this year was from whatever I could glean from a computer screen expression and things in the room behind them.

Is that enough for me to prefer an in-person program? No, it isn’t, for two reasons:

One: I’m likely one of the only people on the team who really feels a sense of loss about not getting a glimpse into the summer associate personalities.

Others on my team had check-ins with them individually a few times over the summer, and our summer chairs and hiring partners also had small group meetings to chat on a regular basis. The summers set up their own small group meetings, and also had multiple virtual meetings with their mentors and “neighborhood” groups. From my experience meeting and chatting with WALRAA members virtually, if you have the time, connections are made, and I imagine that for everyone who had a chance to meet the summers in that environment don’t really feel like their connections would be significantly different in person.

As an assistant, it’s appropriate that I have the least touch points with the summers, and that is just how it plays out in a virtual environment. I wouldn’t schedule check-ins with the summers simply for the sake of my own curiosity over the summer, but I also don’t think my lack of exposure to them virtually is significant enough to account for a programming change as dramatic as in-person vs virtual decision. Perhaps it’s something to keep in mind for next year and make it my own personal goal to initiate conversations more, but otherwise it’s simply the new baseline in the virtual world. I can be ok with that. Especially when it means that I’m not working a ridiculous amount of overtime and long nights in exchange.

Virtual connections take planning to accomplish. It's simply the new baseline in the virtual world.

Two: The benefits of remote work far outweigh this slight loss of communication opportunity.

I was able to sleep in daily, was able to wear comfortable clothing, there was no commute in the morning, a much reduced getting-ready routine, no stress from other people’s anxieties, no office politics, and far less overtime and late nights spent away from the person I love. I could be in complete control of my environment and how I presented myself. So that in the end, even though there was so much to learn in a short period of time, and so much riding on us getting it right, my stress level this summer was far less than I’ve ever felt during a summer program - or even at any job - ever. And that, to me, is worth the sacrifice of missing a few casual conversations.

Overall, I learned a lot in a variety of ways these past four weeks, and am glad I had the experience.

I worked with a really great team of legal recruiter’s across the U.S. who navigated what I think has to be one of the best ways to run a virtual program. Very few things surprised us, very few details weren’t considered and accounted for - it was both planned well and thoroughly to the absolute best of our collective abilities. And although we may have fell short in a couple of areas, what we did do turned into a very robust and beneficial four week program. I’m super proud to have been a part of it.

Summer Program: Week 2 - 2020 Reflections

The Show Goes On

It's July 13th, 2020, and as the second week of the summer program gets started it’s beginning to feel like we’re never going back to the office. Although summer seemed to be bringing a promise of less sickness, it appears as though the opposite has happened. While New York has finally reported its first day of zero COVID deaths since March, Florida and California are surpassing New York’s worst record days in cases. The cases are different - more young people and less deaths - but they are nonetheless consequential in terms of reopening. It’s becoming hard to even imagine going back to a world the way it “used to be.”

Getting used to video conferencing/constant screen time seems to be the new reality, and I’m certainly getting my fair share now that the summer program is in full swing. It’s interesting. I protested a lot about being able to do everything remotely that we did in person, but now seeing it actually played, out I’m realizing there is a significant difference. On the information side of it, what I had thought does seem to be true. We’re still getting the same speakers talking about the same things, with the same benefits and problems that comes with it based on who they are and what the topic is.

What’s missing are the side benefits.

There is no chatting with anyone in a side conversation as the meeting is beginning, no lingering after to listen to questions, no directing to the next conference room, or reminders about upcoming programs and deadlines, no quick questions the summers might be asking (like “can I take the food back to my office?”), and no mini meeting debriefings in the elevator afterwards. It’s purely - just work. And that seems to make a rather significant difference.

The virtual summer program is purely - just work.

By this time in a 'normal' in-person pre-COVID program, I would have felt like I was beginning to get a sense of who the summer associates were, and how the group behaved as a whole - even with my limited interactions with them as an assistant. Now, however, even two weeks in, they are still just faces on a screen. I have no sense of who they are, how they interact, what sorts of things make them unique, or what sorts of relationships they are forming with each other and with the lawyers at the firm. I feel very outside of the program, when by this time, I usually feel much more imbedded due to my role as keeper of the details.

Getting used to talking on video is also a bit of a barrier. In all honesty I sincerely dislike doing it. It makes me feel like I’m on center stage, even when I’m having a one-on-one conversation, and I’ve never liked speaking in the spotlight. I find myself striving not to have to talk, which is definitely hampering my ability to get to know the summers, as well as likely causing me to miss opportunities where it might have been helpful or good for the group. My personality is such that in general I look for opportunities to ease tension where I see it, but in this format I find doing that to be almost impossible because I am so apt to avoid being in the spotlight.

Not to mention tension is incredibly hard to gauge in this remote world.

What is awkward in a normal conversation - such as long silences - are kind of necessary in video-land due to the mute button delay. The polite thing to do while someone else is speaking is to mute your mic, which we all do, but then if you want to jump in, or respond quickly, you first must unmute yourself, and speakers generally have to sit in silence while you do that. And even in smaller groups when it’s more common to leave mics unmuted, most apps still have trouble handling two people speaking at the same time. Breaking tension in that situation would not be advised, but the tension remains.

So while I love being home, I can say with certainty now that there are benefits of being in the office that can’t be replaced with video conferencing.

I don’t know that those benefits aren’t worth the trade-off, however. I also don’t know that some of the things that are missing are simply because this is our first time doing the program virtually. Perhaps we simply haven’t gotten used to, and haven’t accounted for, the efforts that it will require to sustain real relationships virtually. We were flung rather unceremoniously into this virtual world, and although we’ve worked hard to recreate a virtual environment that resembles the physical for our summer associates, we have certainly not given much thought to ourselves. So perhaps the verdict should remain out. Perhaps we should continue to be students of this new virtual world we now live in, and resist passing judgment on what works and what doesn’t work quite yet.

First Day of a First Ever Virtual Summer Program - 2020 Reflections

It's July 6th, 2020, and today marks the first day of my firm's first ever all-virtual Summer Associate Program. It’s a momentous day, and one my team and I have diligently been preparing for weeks. But in spite of our practices, test runs, constant emails and Webex Teams chats, being that this is the first time we’ve ever done the program like this, we’re all on high-anxiety alert.

Normally, the summer program is a breeze once it starts.

Normally the summer program is a breeze once it starts. Tasks consist of setting out nameplates on tables, sitting through speeches and panels we’ve heard year after year, solving an occasional AV problem, ushering nervous summers to the correct room locations and reassuring them they can take the food back to their offices. There are a lot of late nights but there is also a lot of free food and camaraderie to make up for it. You deal with collecting data and the occasional emotional upheaval, but for the most part the work is done and you’re just letting the program run itself. Not so this year.

This year, not only did we not have the luxury of planning the program several months in advance, we’re also making an abrupt transition to an all virtual platform - and no one really knows how it’s going to go.

We’ve never done this before.

And to add an extra layer of complexity, because of the all virtual format, we’ve factored in another new aspect of the program by making many of the sessions firm-wide offerings rather than doing them office by office as we had done in the past. Firm-wide sessions meant a whole new level of coordination, never attempted before, that basically just added anxieties of everyone on the recruiting team and spread them across all offices. It made sense at the time but has turned out to be not an ideal mix in practice. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as the saying goes.

I am particularly nervous.

While I happily asserted myself as the DC team’s tech “expert," I’m starting to realize the weight of that responsibility as the program gets started. If these meetings don’t run well, it will be perceived as my fault. If I run into something I don’t know how to fix, I will have failed in my role. And to be clear, I am not a “tech person.” I just happen to be a bit more versed tech-wise than it seems anyone else is on the DC recruiting team. But I’m well aware that there is a heck of a lot more to know, and a heck of a lot more that can go wrong, or be set up wrong, or be executed wrong, than I can be prepared for in the few moments I’ll have to diagnose. Sure, I can research the problem after the fact, but in the moment - when everyone is staring at my video screen - it’s me that’s going to need to know how to use my resources. And that makes me feel like I’m on center stage, my least favorite place to be.

When everyone is staring at my video screen - it's me that's going to need to know how to use my resources.

Palms sweaty but showered and professionally attired, I open the first Webex Meeting, and the virtual summer program begins. The first session is a solid 8 out of 10. We have a slight glitch when the presenter powers don’t switch as they should but easily move past it by just delegating slide movements to me. A quick email to the next presenter alerts them to the new routine, and we’re good to go. My session ends, and the rest is up to the firm-wide presenters who now have AV and IT techs on all their calls because they made a switch to Webex Events last week (!) after learning that with so many people on these calls that would be a better platform. (As you might imagine, management freaked out upon learning this a week prior to the start of the program)

The first day has seemed to be off to a good start, and we all, somewhat hesitantly, breathe a small sigh of relief.

Immediately after, we get back to work.