"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo)
07/22/2017 at 21:51 • Filed to: h
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"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo)
07/22/2017 at 21:51 • Filed to: h | 12
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This profession exacts a toll on all of us. You have to understand what you are capable of tolerating. I could not exist when I was a public defender. I can do what I do now, despite the conflict and confrontation inherent to it. We all have different tolerances.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/business/lawyers-addiction-mental-health.html?mcubz=2
The part that rang the most true for me was the part about how law school fucks with people’s heads. It is totally true. After my first year of law school at Pepperdine, I was so disgusted by the whole thing that I did not want to be a lawyer any more. I quit school. I walked in, and they asked me if I was taking a break or transferring, and I said I was quitting. I went to work at a ready mix concrete plant doing maintenance and repairs (maybe my wrenching skills are not quite as sad as I have claimed), and was determined to never go back.
After almost a year at the concrete plant, I was getting worn out. I got injured a couple of times, and I just got tired of the work. I got a job working at a rare and out of print book store in West Hollywood, but that also got boring quickly. I went to work fundraising and signature gathering in the shady, shitty world of California “grass roots” politics. I finally went back to law school in Vermont, a continent and a cultural universe away from LA.
Please do not misunderstand. I like what I do, and am not a drug addict nor am I suicidal. But I can understand why the world this guy was in crushed him, and it makes me sad to think of his desperation, especially trying to make that last conference call.
If you or someone you know is considering going to law school, the most important thing you need to realize is that it is a three year mind fuck, especially the first year. It is designed to break you down, and turn you into someone else. When I went back to school, I got to know a lot of first years, even though I was transferring in as a second year. Man, people changed after that first semester, and grades and ranks came out for the first time. I think I saw it more when I was coming back than I did when I was in my first year. Read the section of the article about law school. It is accurate. Legal education needs to fundamentally change.
I am not sure anyone can resist being changed in some ways by it, but you should at least go in with your eyes open. This profession fucks a lot of people up in very unpleasant ways. Nobody should work 60 hours a week for 20 years. Shit, I don’t do that now. But I have decided that I am happy making a certain amount of money, and I am not that motivated to increase it. Growth will go back into the business, and my young associates will be the ones who take this beyond what I have done. I just want to finish out the part that I started, and drive the Sunchaser off into the sunset with my wife and my dog.
I have put a clock of 10-15 years from today for the core of what I do, and after that, I have to get myself out of the fray. I see old lawyers, and it ain’t pretty. They can’t give it up. In the end, it is just a job.
That being said, in the next 2 months I am getting $5,000 to give a speech to some cow people in San Francisco, and another $5,000 to talk to farm people in Illinois. Maybe I can be a paid speaker- the Tony Robbins of agricultural labor. That is easy money, if there is any money to be had in it. And I will not make the farmers walk on hot coals.
I am lucky that I developed something where I could start my own firm. Even when cash flow is stressful, and I worry about all kinds of things, it is way better than being a partner in a big firm. There, other people took money that I made, and that drove me crazy. Now, for positive or negative, it is all mine and I make it work or not. Enough of my silly babble, I apologize, but this affected me.
xyzabc
> ImmoralMinority
07/22/2017 at 21:54 |
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There’s always truck driving school.
Chariotoflove
> ImmoralMinority
07/22/2017 at 22:00 |
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All you gotta do is keep your eye on the ball. Go hug the wife and kids and remember what’s important. Harder than it sounds some days though.
atfsgeoff
> ImmoralMinority
07/22/2017 at 22:03 |
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Lawyers are paid to be adversarial. There’s bound to be consequences to that. It has its upsides and downsides, like most professions.
Trunk Impaired 318
> ImmoralMinority
07/22/2017 at 22:14 |
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I understand completely, and I haven’t even started working yet. I just got my PharmD and you’ve accurately described most professional degrees. Granted, I think law school probably is tougher than most of the medical professions but they’re all designed to completely change you.
I went with the brave/stupid strategy of doing it my way and not putting all my faith in class ranks/grades but to rather do acceptably and prove my worth during what were effectively internships. I was very fortunate to land a good paying job with one of the sites where I rotated through as a student and love the work I’ll be doing. The sad part is I know there are going to be a lot of my classmates who aren’t going to get their dream jobs and are going to end up being severely overworked and underappreciated. Couple that with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans and easy access to prescription drugs and there are definitely going to be people I know who go through exactly what this article describes. Something’s gotta give somewhere and someday I hope that something won’t have to be people.
shop-teacher
> ImmoralMinority
07/22/2017 at 22:23 |
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What part of Illinois are you coming too?
My X-type is too a real Jaguar
> ImmoralMinority
07/22/2017 at 22:39 |
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I was a PI and I saw it. From cooked up sociopathic Personal Injury attorneys, sleazy divorce attorneys to burned out insurance company in house counsel trying to catch workmans comp cheaters. On the last batch the 10-15% of cases that were cheating completely screwed up those attorneys viewpoints.
I found myself questioning what the hell I was doing so I went back to the IT industry.
gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
> ImmoralMinority
07/22/2017 at 23:03 |
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I had a friend who went to become a lawyer. he had to put down everytime he had been binge drinking, not sure whether for a liability reason, charecter “i’m gonna need more sheets” he put down every thur/fri/sat night, and holiday for the previous 3 years.
I think the way we have careers is really odd. we pick a major spend years studying for it. Then plop right in. It is why I think internships are important to at least see what its like. I know of a bunch of people just burned out, but nowhere to go or do. I don’t have a solution, but I don’t think the expectations on careers are sustainible. I think of how many people who don’t use their degree and think there has to be a more efficient way.
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> ImmoralMinority
07/22/2017 at 23:30 |
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“the Tony Robbins of agricultural labor” - that’s going on the website!
Eric @ opposite-lock.com
> My X-type is too a real Jaguar
07/23/2017 at 06:30 |
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IT is a terrible industry in many ways as well. I’ve hung on, but I know more people that have dropped out or work for peanuts to hang on than I do people that have made it through their 40s in it. It’s an industry for the young, it seems.
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My X-type is too a real Jaguar
> Eric @ opposite-lock.com
07/23/2017 at 09:32 |
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I walked away when I was in my 30s but came back, I’m now the old man trainer in my 40s. It seems there is a knowledge gap to fill and the younger crowd in their 20s never had to teach themselves. Those in their 40s had to out of necessity just to get things to work, now you only need that knowledge to fix things. Those skills must be taught and I make a pretty good living teaching those skills.
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Eric @ opposite-lock.com
> My X-type is too a real Jaguar
07/23/2017 at 14:51 |
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I am a little curious about the specifics.
I’m still in the prime years of my career, but I’m getting worried at this point. I’m working on trying to make a jump either to somewhere with a solid long-term exit strategy (ex: Startup that I can retire from) or a company that’s extremely stable (ex: Major tech company where I can jump to management). I don’t really see any other ways to stay in it.
Most people I know that have stayed in tech had extremely unusual skill sets, they were exceptional in their field, and they were willing to take jobs that ruined their personal lives repeatedly. They are less than 1 in 10 of the people I worked with in the late 1990s, consumed more by their careers than anything else just to survive...
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My X-type is too a real Jaguar
> Eric @ opposite-lock.com
07/23/2017 at 15:40 |
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The best way to thrive is to get into management or training which ever you would prefer. I was in management and hated it, budgets, equipment purchases etc. I couldn’t stand it. So I moved to IT training I train people to be help desk support at a managed IT Company. I enjoy it and I make a good living, the best thing is I’m portable, I can easily leave for better pay and or conditions.
The other option is to become a grey bearded UNIX guy.
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Eric @ opposite-lock.com
> My X-type is too a real Jaguar
07/23/2017 at 16:54 |
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Is it still possible to be a proper greybeard? There are a lot of kids these days with Linux skills that can move into that area. It’s no longer a place the awkward nerds can hide as far as I’ve seen.
I’ll have a very hard time being in tech and not being hands-on.