The Story of A Gap in the CV of a “Female” Immigrant Lawyer: Part 3
In Part 1 and Part 2, I discussed why I decided to become an international lawyer and the challenges of embracing an immigrant's identity.
In this part, I will discuss a topic that I think is still taboo in the legal industry: the concept of a break or time-out.
Here is an exercise. Say you meet someone who has a gap in their CV. What would be your thoughts about the gap?
You’d probably ask — why the gap?
Say you receive an answer.
Would you mind the gap?
What would that depend on? The reason for the break? The duration of the break? The gender of the person taking the break? The timing of the break?
Why?
In 2022, I did a brave thing. I asked for help. It was a genuine question posed to the legal industry: I am overwhelmed. What should I do?
The answer was: have you considered a sabbatical? At the same time, the question was: isn’t it too early in your career to take a break?
I have observed a certain degree of reverence in the industry towards the linear career path. The glorification of continuing without stopping makes time-out an anomaly in the system.
This cynicism has not made any sense to me. A linear career path assumes that everyone’s lives unfold in the same manner and that everyone is similarly placed when it comes to dealing with emergencies, overwhelm, or life.
And the irony is right there. An emergency/overwhelm, by its very nature, is unpredictable, just like people’s origins, lives, and stories.
Let’s start with overwhelm.
Why would one get overwhelmed? Some may ask.
What’s wrong with being overwhelmed? I would ask.
Overwhelm can have many shades. Some can be overwhelmed due to the arrival fallacy. You ran, ran, and got that dream job, and suddenly you are lost. There is no natural structure to follow after the job. There are an “overwhelming” number of skills that you need to master in a short period. You feel miserable without an outlet for passions — golf for some, tennis for others, and arts for people like me. Your team has changed. This is general industry chatter.
As lawyers, we crave complexity. Anything simple doesn’t seem true or right to us, so let's add a few more layers of complexity to the above.
Sometimes, a sense of overwhelm can arise from a call of duty.
The call of duty can come from anywhere. It can come from your body and mind, warning you to slow down and rest because you have been running too long since birth. Taken to its logical extreme, it can come from a health emergency. Sometimes, it can be accompanied by other emergencies, such as those concerning the family. On other occasions, it can be about an early intervention — to prevent an emergency.
Sometimes, all emergencies can be managed over a weekend or a week-long holiday. Sometimes, they require months. Those who burnout barely manage to recover.
Here is a tale from the age of COVID-19, which has thankfully become a duck now. We have managed to take the teeth out of it. But when it was lethal, I was in the UK. I remember when the restrictions were relaxed, many of my colleagues were relieved that they could finally go see their extended family—just a car ride away on the outskirts.
Others had families located 3–4 hours of flight away from London, making weekly visits somewhat manageable. And then there were those from Singapore or Australia, who just moved back to their home because they couldn’t deal with the anxiety that was driving both them and their families mad. It usually takes me 13+ hours to reach home. Remote management of obligations presents unique challenges for immigrants falling in this “in fact distant from home” category. A time-out can be a handy tool in helping such immigrants address their specific circumstances.
And here is where I want the readers to pause and reflect. Given our highly competitive age, I don’t think a time-out is anyone’s natural choice. For an immigrant who has probably had to fight wars to land an international opportunity, a time-out is a big decision. For a female immigrant, a time-out can become an even bigger gamble.
It is, then, honestly, all about priorities.
Some things are replaceable—for example, an employee. But some things are not replaceable: family, health, and early career skill building. Any time spent nurturing and nourishing these is time gainfully spent.
No questions asked.
It would be great if we started seeing time-out requests for what they are—a powerful selection of priorities. Then, it would matter not why someone needs a time-out but who they become after the time-out. It could be a version that is way more resilient and clear-headed than the one you met before they went on that time-out.
Why did I need a time-out? Well, let's put it this way. I would have loved not to ask for a time-out if my home was closer, if my siblings were not so young, if my parents were not older, if I could arrange a field worker, if I didn’t think showing up for myself and family was important, if I thought I’d get another chance to upskill and be with loved ones, or if I wasn’t multi-passionate.
I’ll discuss what I learned from my time-out in the following articles.
But let me close with these few lines.
“One of the tests of leadership is ability to recognise a problem before it becomes an emergency” — Arnold H. Glasow
