Internship Day 2

The greatest challenge of working in an internship is not necessarily the task you are asked to perform, but rather, finding your place in context of the Chinese work place. Much of the “roles” have already been pre-established, and it feels like you’ve just walked into a new school, where everyone has already formed their own cliques, and you are just trying to find your place in that surrounding.
For me, as I currently do not have any assignments, I stare wistfully at the thermos full of hot water. I am tempted to take it around and fill everyone’s cups, but I feel like I would be messing with an office tradition. It is like meeting at the water cooler to talk. For the lawyers here, it is an excuse to walk around during their down times, stretch their legs, and chat with the other lawyers in other offices. I feel that if I took that away from them, I would be ruining this whole established office dynamic.

The lawyers here though, do indeed have a great sense of teamwork, and I do not know if that is really how lawyers work in general, or if it is an influence of the Chinese culture. With anything they do not know, they ask their coworkers around them. If they find that something is too much, another lawyer who has little to do will contribute what they can and share the workload. It is really something of a marvel.

I know lawyers have to do a lot of case prep work in the States, namely searching for a bunch of precedents, but here, I feel like I see them working harder on figuring out the specifics of the case. For example, there is a bunch of medical jargon that they have to both research and understand. While they are not doctors themselves, in some ways I find that they must be “experts” in everything, or at least feign expertise. However, one noteworthy thing is that they seem to use Baidu for everything. I do not know if it is a matter of finding sources, or simply Baidu answers, but I remain suspicious of their sense of “reliable sources” even at the legalistic level.

I think in general, I will be required to be at the peak of my observational skills in order to learn something from this law firm. There is a lot to observe, but they are all subtle things.

At the moment, they all appeared fairly busy, but when I crossed their screens, I discovered, they were simply surfing or looking at things they were interested in. Half the time, I think they are checking the news, but I think they really multitask. Since this is their “low” time of year in terms of cases, there isn’t too much to do. But once things pile on, the pressure I am sure will be intense. Granted, today seems “busier” than yesterday, as yesterday, they were simply just chatting or playing games or being on QQ. It was fairly obvious. Today, the working environment is a little “colder,” but I can still feel a sense of the camaraderie that they share.

At the moment, I am personally trying to design a website. No one has asked this of me, but if I submit a few versions to choose from (at least templates), perhaps they will see that I am not entirely useless. I feel like I’m being babysit-ed to some degree, because they seem satisfied with the fact that I am merely keeping myself busy in a desk in a corner. They do not really care what I am doing, so long as I am not a bother. I guess this goes with the territory. I will make a second attempt to find tasks to do after lunch. Perhaps it will be easier to strike up a conversation then.