A Different Tactic. Part 4. 5:30 p.m. in Book Four: Ichi-no-Tani 2017

Admissions and Humanity

The above picture is Historic Downtown Ames. As I am in the Ames office today; other attorneys have been proving to me that the world of Attorneys is not filled with demanding assholes; but humans. The difference is IOWANS versus NON IOWANS. Because I work for Non Iowans. Iowans, on the other hand? So… if I type “protections order” instead of “protection order” my bosses throw an absolute shit fit about how “terrible of a writer I am.” Meanwhile… on a Judge’s Written Order filed with the state today? “the path forward id prefered to what has happened in the past.” That is an official, judicially published item. On the phone with my bosses… curt, frank, demanding. On the phone with the HEAD OF PUBLIC DEFENDERS IN IOWA… friendly, jovial, even joking and asking how things have been since “switching sides.” Then I completely forgot something today for a case; and rapid wrote the prosecutor. If I even admitted to this to my bosses… it would be a twenty minute lecture on how I’m a poor attorney and need to consider whether I’m doing my best or slacking off. THE PROSECUTOR (the person who would MOST benefit from my fuck up) said “No worries. It happens to everybody. I’ll tell the judge we’re continuing it but go ahead and file something so it is on paper.” And the last straw? End of the day. In Ames, I share the office with another attorney who is in maybe once a week. He was in this afternoon. After taking a few calls, he walked over to my office and chatted. Asked how I was doing… how my case load was working out… asked if I was getting the hang of private practice. Treated me like a person. Which is more than my bosses do. So… yeah. More evidence that, it isn’t ME and it isn’t being an attorney… I just… work for very very broken people.

Though… in that statement, I must confess my own flaws. I am broken as well. I have Fibromyalgia thus I lack the energy (physically and emotionally) that most of my peers would possess. I lack the enthusiasm for my role that my bosses were certainly counting on. That is my failure. That is where I let the firm down. But I can’t help but think… if this were a firm of… people… that might be different. If this were a firm where cases were discussed, lives were lived and shared, and it was Humans helping Humans… things might be different. As it is? My bosses spend the time when they are in the Country in their office with the door shut. There’s no… connection. Which is probably why my mind goes back to Tiny Town. Tiny Town was isolated and cold. But we all connected. When Cecilia’s husband died… it would have been unthinkable to skip the Wake or the Funeral. There was a connection there. Our DHS support was crazy; but we spent time talking when we could, to keep each other sane. I suppose that would be the better way of summarizing the issue and the disconnect. In Tiny Town… you’d reach out to each other to keep from losing your mind. Here? The firm tries to bury itself in constant work… which only secures that we’ll all eventually lose our mind.