Career choices

I wonder which firm this is referring to ....

One day, her whole team ramped up to help a client through some litigation. Everyone had to work extremely long hours, and Courtney was spending so much time in the office she had to hire a dog walker. It went on like that for days. And then weeks. Finally she decided that until the litigation ended, she would send Isabel up to the farm her family runs, where her parents would watch her. She hated coming home to a house without a dog. But it was only temporary, and Isabel would be a lot happier running around all day than cooped up inside.

"How's Isabel?" colleagues would ask.

"Oh, I've been working so much that I sent her up to the farm in New York," she'd reply. Her immediate co-workers knew all about the family business. And this small bit of gossip spread even beyond them.

It wasn't long after that when a higher up in the firm approached Courtney in the office. "I heard you sent your dog to a farm in the country," he said. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm very impressed by your dedication." It's always nice to get positive feedback from a superior, but something about the way he said it made her pause. And then it dawned on her. One of her bosses, taking "the country" to be a euphemism, thought that she'd put her dog down in order to focus on the case.

And he was commending her for it!