It’s An Answer

At least it’s official.  Apparently, one of the partners in the firm (third on the letterhead) has something cross-ways with me.  I had my “mentoring” meeting yesterday, which (as I had suspected) is nothing more than a meeting to tell me the powers that be are not happy with something, and #3 wanted to be involved in my meeting. 

My mentor (#2 on the letterhead, who has heretofore been mostly happy with my work) called this guy because he had some comments he wanted to discuss.  He got down there, and my mentor had to explain to him that I had already done real estate litigation and was therefore familiar with the “person” issues versus the “legal” issues!  WTF?  This was the first I’d heard of anything remotely related to my work on this score. 

The more we talked, though, the more it became clear that his whole attitude was that I had started there as a temp and I was still there.  His little protege (his buddy the judge’s daughter) can do no wrong, but I’m still here when I should have been fired after my assignment ended, instead of being offered a permanent position.  “Person” issues are just the way he thinks he’s going to get to do it. 

His other comment was that my hours were up one month and down the next, which he didn’t understand.  My mentor explained the health concerns and that September was a shorter billing month, so it sounds like there was discussion about my future earlier this month as I had sensed.  Regardless of any reasons, though, he’s just not going to be happy unless I’m billing 180+ hours a month and sucking up to him the whole time. 

The thing is, there will always be people who, for whatever reason, think I don’t belong.  It’s weird that I had a third-grade teacher who made the school I was attending pull my scholarship for the same reason – I tested off the charts for academics, but she didn’t think I was the “right” sort of person to attend that school (it was one of those hoity-toity private schools for children of the rich and privileged). 

The only reason I can think of why this guy at 50-something years old should still be playing this sandbox game is that people like me scare the shit out of him because he can’t control them.  He doesn’t know how people who haven’t grown up with the privileges of wealth and position get anywhere without strings to pull or to have pulled on them.  The fact that I am doing what I do without depending on him must be completely beyond his comprehension because he has relied heavily on his family’s position in this community to get the business he’s gotten.  Yes, he’s a good attorney – but that and $2.00 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. 

I know it sounds like I’m just being snide because I’m hurt – I’m not hurt, because I don’t care what this buffoon thinks of me.  I’m angry, more than anything else.  There are other people higher on the food chain than he whose opinions I value more. 

This is a guy who ordered those of us in our practice group – ordered! – to read an article that his little protege wrote and give her feedback, and he told her to tell him who responded and who didn’t.  (Call me crazy, but I ignored her email and article on principle.)  I have no respect for anyone who relies on thuggery to get his own way.  People who do that are bullies, and the best way to beat a bully is to ignore him. 

But at least I know what’s going on.  And knowledge is power.

This reminds me of that little story about the bird who froze in the winter and fell off his branch whereupon a cow dropped a pile of warm manure on him.  The warmth got him feeling so chipper, he started to sing, whereupon he was discovered and rescued from the dung by a cat.  Who ate him.

Moral:  The one who drops shit on you is not necessarily your enemy.  The one who pulls you out of shit is not necessarily your friend.  When you’re up to your neck in shit, for heaven’s sake, don’t sing!