I like Bank Holidays – a chance to think about the week ahead and delight in the idea of a four day week but the difficulty with a four day week for a conveyancer is that we have to squash five days into four!
I applaud those firms which offer four day working weeks but I am not really convinced that they work and when you get emails from those firms over the weekend (or at nine o’clock on a Monday morning as the delay send facility has been used) , I do question whether the four day week in conveyancing world is a good idea.
I think it would be lovely to go home on a Thursday and not go back to the office until Monday. In my experience, such a lot happens in the space of an hour in conveyancing land let alone a day which is why the job is so exciting and frustrating. We turn up to work in the morning with a pile of work to do and there are days when the pile is still there at five o’clock as there has been a turn of events in a client’s house move which means that much of the day has to be focused on that one client.
We can’t say to the client – sorry I have a pile of work to get through, can your breakdown about your house wait until tomorrow when I will be in a better position to give it the thought it deserves?
It is a fast world – clients expect an immediate response and we have to remember that we are dealing with their lives. To some extent, their lives are on hold pending the house move and they want to know when they will be able to move.
Calling their conveyancer only to find that it is the day off probably does not help the stress. But I do applaud those firms with the four day working week culture who have succeeded at it because they have teams working on files which enables any issues to be handled. Moving house is stressful – but being a conveyancer is also stressful and sometimes we need to have a day off.
