making yourself indispensable

Ten Things: Making Yourself “Indispensable”

This may explain many things about my personality but I have always gone to work feeling like I could get fired any day and at any time.  I am not sure why that is the case (and I am not particularly interested in lying on a couch and talking it out).[1]  I just accept that it’s how I am.  The fear of getting fired has always driven me to find ways to not get fired.  Ultimately, I settled on always trying to be the most valuable member of any legal team I was part of.  I figured that the last person to get fired (short of bringing a handgun to the office and taking some potshots at the boss) is the most valuable person on the team, i.e., the “indispensable” MVP.  And that mentality generally served me well over the past 30 years or so (though there is a fine line between making yourself valuable and being a sap – and Mrs. Ten Things thinks I may have drifted over the line on occasion).  As I look around this never-ending pandemic, Covid-y world, I can imagine that many in-house lawyers may be feeling the same type of anxiety, especially if your company is not exactly thriving in the current economic climate.  But, even if that is not the case, I have spent a good part of the past six months or so writing about how legal departments can show their value to the organization.  How individual members of the department can do the same is a natural extension of that theme and a worthy goal.  This edition of “Ten Things” sets out some ways you can work to make yourself “indispensable” to the legal team and the company:

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