The Next Day in Book Four: Ichi-no-Tani 2017

I had terrifying nightmares about my abusive ex last night. I was in an airport trying to escape; she was following me and draining the souls of anyone who got in her way. I am going to make the wild intuitive leap that this dream is about work. Trying to leave, feeling trapped in a soul draining abusive environment. I mean… it makes sense to me. Though, a word kept repeating in a sing-song way that I’d never heard before. Autopedia. I looked it up when I woke up and it is an Automotive Encyclopedia. Unless you break the words down. Auto means “self” and Pedia means “relating to learning.” So… a nightmare about escaping from a soul draining abusive situation kept repeating Self-Learning?

Here is an interesting difference between Chinese Boss and White Boss. White Boss sent me an e-mail saying that I made a mistake because he missed a hearing this morning. Obviously he was upset. HOWEVER, when he checked the information again, he learned that it was the COURT that made the mistake, not me. He then informed me that it was the court’s error, not my error, and apologized. That’s the difference. The ability to admit that blaming me wasn’t accurate and the apology.

But… as I sit here in the Ames Office with no clients and my Case List shrinking. I’m taken back to the worst parts of Tiny Town’s job. Which… feels kind of unfair, cosmically. I left Tiny Town. New, even worse, problems… sure. That happens. But… New, even worse, problems… added to Tiny Town problems? Oh, come on now! Especially when/how… in Tiny Town… a slow, unproductive day… resulted in a paycheck of $250 for that day. No matter what. AND Insurance. But here? A slow, unproductive day… will result in Chinese Boss yelling at me and a paycheck of (at best) $120. With no health insurance. And that at best is somehow, miraculously pulling 4 billable hours out of my ass… which means it wouldn’t be a slow, unproductive day. I can say with a clear head that, on Ames Days at least.... I would have been better off staying in Tiny Town. Without question. And… this is painful, I think Wife would be better off, too. In Tiny Town… she worked 3 to 4 days a week and almost always mid shifts. Yeah, she had a 45 minute commute that she hated. Yeah, she hated everything about that lonely and abysmal town. But now? Work is the absolute bane of her existence. Like… she is working 1 to 10 p.m. all week. Which means we pretty much won’t see each other. And her day off? Friday. When, due to a long distance case my bosses assigned me.... I won’t be home from “the office” until 8 or 9 p.m. at the latest. Only to immediately have to get into bed because of an event on Saturday that starts at 8, so I have to do set up at 7. M. F. J!

Here’s something I don’t understand. I wrote a letter to a University. The title of the letter was wrong… it said “RE: Danny O’Toole” instead of “RE: James McGovern” but the letter was sent to the correct person, the letter’s content stated “On behalf of James McGovern” and the letter was SIGNED by “James McGovern.” When the letter was sent (snail and e-mail) the letter head was “James McGovern”. The only time it said “RE: Danny O’Toole” was on the title of the letter. Oh, also… Chinese Boss looked this over first before we sent it out.

I get a phone call from Chinese Boss. “I’m not happy!” What is it now? “I’ve been trying to get these people to talk to me for two weeks and nobody will get back to me. And no wonder! The letter is wrong. You did the letter wrong. You have to do these things better. No wonder nobody has gotten back to me. You’ve wasted so much of my time!”

Am I wrong to think that such a thing is… well… kind of horse shit? GRANTED I accept fault that the letter should not have had “Danny O’Toole” on it. That is a significant issue. But it is a significant issue SEPARATE FROM the fact that the people who received the letter have not responded… or at least, that is what I would assume being relatively sane minded? If I receive a letter from Mid American titled “Your Business Account” (which I don’t have) but the entire letter discusses my Home Account (which I do have) and the account numbers are for my Home Account… I’m not going to just… not respond. Again, I didn’t fight Chinese Boss on this because… frankly… she is correct. I made a mistake. She is correct, I need to make less mistakes in the future. But… as to it being the reason nobody has responded to her? I think that may be an over-reaction or reductionist assumption on her part.

So… yeah. I will stand up to her in the future. But only when the heart of what she is saying is wrong. If the spirit of what she is saying is wrong… I need to just toughen up and think “Fuck that, whatever.” Oh, another thing about standing up to her on that shit. This weekend’s issue is already done (as far as telling her to fuck off). But… if she does something like that again, which she will, I will tell her no and make her deal with it. Because the issue isn’t so much that she is demanding another 11 hours of my day on a Saturday without paying me a dime. That is a big enough issue in itself. The bigger issue is that she dictates it to me. She doesn’t ask me if I’ve already made plans for Saturday. She doesn’t ask if I’m free on Saturday. She doesn’t even ask me if I’d be willing to give up my Saturday. She says “This is happening. You’re doing it. Done.” And that is what I take exception to. I don’t care if that is “the acceptable way of doing it in business.” I am not a dog. I am not a canine. And I’m not some fresh faced school boy hoping to get a cookie if I do what mommy tells me. I am a human being. I’m an attorney. And I graduated from law school the same year as you did and even passed the bar the same test that you did. The only difference is that when you passed the bar, you immediately had a job. Whereas I had to wait a year. And yes, your job was Private Practice in Des Moines whereas I was Prosecutor in Tiny Town. But that just means you’ve had 1 more year of experience and you’ve worked in a wider array of law.

So now… I leave Ames. Go to Des Moines. Have a hearing. All in all… having only earned about $180 total over the last two stressful days. Which sounds about right, actually. I mean… before, when I was working at Best Buy… I’d have stressful days. And I’d make about $90 per day. So why not? Keep the stressful days, keep the Retail Associate Pay… just add the fact that I have a Post-Graduate Degree and am a fully licensed attorney.

Last updated November 14, 2017