Thank God Mr Mr is a smooth mannered and civil guy. He brought work with him from the old law firm, who were sad to see him go and wanted to help him on his way. It was a good job, too.
The SRA said that for him to have an independent licence that let him trade as a Law Firm himself would take 3 months. Yes, that's right. 3 months. Our hopes of starting up in October were dashed and a new date.... January 1st 2014.... seemed the most likely.
My work in school was mornings only, so I returned home at 2pm to start a second job, sorting out websites and Facebook. Actually, setting up domains and building a website seemed easy compared to the paperwork Mr Mr was still filling in and sending off.
Every solicitor has to be approved by the Solicitors' Regulations Authority. Basically, you can't just set up on your own; they check everything about you, your finances, your qualifications, whether you've been in trouble, everything. I think the only question they didn't ask is what size shoe Mr Mr wore. And if they're not happy then they ring or email or contact you and make you fit in to their guidelines. I'm not criticising them. Being a lawyer is a very responsible job, and running a law firm even more so. They want to know that firm isn't going to just vanish leaving its clients in a fix, or that the owners aren't running it just for the profits. We were set on our path and just took the regulations as something that had to be done.
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| This picture, borrowed from the Telegraph site, pretty much sums up how red tape makes me feel; trapped, held down, suffocated. |
The first couple of months of Mr Mr working at home were harder for me than I thought. I was finding my way in a job I'd never done before, and I felt like an idiot. Every day I had a silly question to ask, from "How do I work this phone?" to "Where do we keep the envelopes?" I hadn't had a job in an office before, and the last teaching position I had had been in a small school where money was always tight and there was no such thing as stock unless you provided it yourself. Getting used to having colleagues again was a surprise. All of a sudden I had people to talk to and get to know. I had a purpose and a challenge, to improve attendance at the school which was around 92%. I had ideas and aspirations.... but I had a house and children who were suffering from neglect, a meal to prepare every night and a house that I collapsed into at 2pm instead of bounding in with my Next Big Idea. It was stressful. I found myself sitting next to Mr Mr asking him to check on the website late at night because I would come home, have lunch with him, sit for an hour until a child to tutor came in, get dinner ready, spend time chilling with the offspring and only when they had finally settled happily to work or bed did I get the computer out and begin what we had ascribed as 'my job', the website and social media.
And weirdly I missed being alone in the house. With supply, I'd managed a day or two a week when there was only me and nobody in control of my destiny. I could go out, clean up, visit friends or relations, spend all my time on the computer or none. Now I had a small window free to do something, usually not enough time to go anywhere and often not enough energy to be bothered. Daily lunch with a husband sounds lovely in theory but in actuality I missed being able to drop everything and just go for a coffee. Now I felt obliged to ask Mr Mr to come as well.... and sometimes you just want that breathing space. I began to worry about whether I'd be any use working full time in his office, or would the lack of freedom be an issue?
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