List Post: What Not to Do if You’re Having a Bad Day

I wasn’t going to post at all today, because I directed all of my obsessive compulsive urges and creative energy towards setting up and photographing my entries to the ABA Journal’s “Peeps in Law Gallery”, which I anticipate (and am a bit concerned) may be my greatest contribution to the legal profession.

But I had to post because I am doing Australian blogger Darren Rowse’s (also known as ProBlogger) “31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge”, and Day Two’s homework is to write a “list post”. I thought about making up some lame excuse such as “I ate too many Peeps to blog today” but my inner “Miss Type A” went ballistic at the thought of being a quitter on the blog challenge after just one day. Darren says (in essence) that “list posts” are popular in part because readers want their content delivered really fast.

So here’s my list of things not to do if you’re having a bad day at the law office (which isn’t entirely unheard of in a mostly deadline-oriented, procrastinator-attracting profession):

1. Don’t quit. Remember who has to bring home the kibble, and keep your dog’s picture right beside your computer monitor.
2. Don’t vent by drafting an e-mail with what you’d really like to say, because you might accidentally hit send, and everyone knows you really can’t withdraw an e-mail after it’s been “rung”.
3. Don’t say what you’d really like to say. Just zip it for 24 hours. It won’t seem nearly as witty or profound in the morning.
4. Don’t shriek and slam your boss’s door so hard that the entire building shakes. It will attract undue interest, and if you aren’t terminated, your co-workers will still be gossiping about the incident five years later.
5. Don’t forget to breathe. If you didn’t plan to get out of the office for lunch, get out – even if you just go through the Sonic drive-thru. Take a short walk outside and take a few deep breaths. Bring another framed picture of your dog to work tomorrow.