Cursed With Ambition

I Finally Had My Abraham Lincoln Dream

Isn't it written somewhere that every real American has to have an Abraham Lincoln dream before they die?  Well, last night I had mine.  I normally think that people talking about their dreams is hokey drivel and people always want to read things into dreams and make them more important indicators of a person and their psyche than reality.  I know that's more fun, but it's also bullshit.  Dreams are no mystery.  They are tied to something experienced or thought about or noticed or some faint memory, but they are not mystical.  For example, for some reason there have been a lot of TV shows about Abraman Lincoln on lately.  I thought it had to do with President's Day on in February, but they've persisted through March.  Then I thought maybe it was the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's death or something, but he was assasinated in 1865 and it's 2009...what's 2009 minus 1865...like 144?  Well anyway, it's not a round number.  So all of the shows are why I had the dream.  There was one recently that talked about the circumstances of Lincoln's burial.  I missed the first part of the show, but apparently grave robbers actually stole Lincoln's body from the original gravesite, or nearly did.  They were caught and the body was recovered, supposedly, but after that there were rumors and legends born that cast doubt on whether Lincoln's body was ever found.  Fearing another attempt to steal the body, his son arranged to have Lincoln buried in a secure underground concrete crypt.  Some of Lincoln's original honor guard members were still alive (this was taking place 30-40 years after his death) and oversaw the moving of the body and placing it in the new crypt.  Well, because of the rumors that the body wasn't actually recovered or that the grave robbers had put someone else's body in the coffin, the honor guard decided to actually open the casket to verify that it was, in fact, Lincoln's body.  It was.  So they sealed it back up and buried it under yards of concrete and that was the end of the story.

In my dream I had travelled back in time and I had become a friend and advisor of Lincoln.  It was still during the civil war, although apparently I was able to change the course of history by foiling the assassination attempt because I knew it was going to happen, even though it occurred after the Civil War ended.  Small detail.  Anyway, so Lincoln was living on borrowed time that I had given him.  Like I said, the Civil War was still going on and Lincoln was actually in the field for some reason, as was I.  We were riding around on horses and I started getting a feeling that something was going to happen.  We were in a partially forested area and we were riding far enough apart that I would lose sight of him from time to time.  I came upon a treeless knoll where I could look down on the surrounding land and that's where I saw Lincoln get assassinated in a clearing below me.  I rushed there and saw that he was dead.  The assassins never appeared, but other men and soldiers who were in our area heard the shots and the shouting and pretty soon there were quite a few Civil War-looking dudes running around.  There was a lot of shock and confusion and grief, but I was trying to keep it together because I knew it was important to preserve the site and what happened for posterity.  So I found a huge roll of aluminum screen wire and covered the whole area, cutting out holes for the trees to fit through.  That's pretty much where the dream ended and I woke up, probably because even in my dream state the level of ridiculousness had gone too far and tripped some sort of "Wait...Wait a minute..." response.

The Decline of American Business and Culture - and - The Extended List of Ojo's Million-Dollar Ideas

These two things actually happened:

1. I recently bought a mountain bike off of Craigslist.  It's a 2002 Trek 8000, which is a really, really good bike.  It retailed for $1,100 brand new.  The owner listed it for $475.  When I showed up to look at it there were two things - it was in nearly mint condition and the pneumatic shocks on the front forks did not hold any air.  I knew from doing some research beforehand that the air can go out of the shocks if the seals dry out, which happens if they sit up for a while without being used.  The owner told me that the bike had been sitting in storage for a couple of years.  I also knew that the problem could also be with the mechanism of the shocks themselves and to replace them could cost 4-500 bucks.  I gambled that it was the simple fix and I offered $350 for the bike because of the issue with the forks.  I was up-front an honest about the problem.  I told the owner, who didn't know much about bikes, that the problem could be a 30-second free fix of just adding some air or it could be a serious problem that would cost several hundred dollars to fix.  The $350 was accepted.  I took the bike to a bike shop near my house.  This is a for-real bike shop.  I went to the service counter and told them that I wanted them to look at the forks to see if they just needed air or if there was a more extensive problem.  I also told them that I wanted to pay for a tuneup, a service they offered for $70.  I thought the check of the forks would be as simple as pumping them with air and putting a gauge on the valve stem to monitor the pressure.  If the pressure goes down then the seals or the fork itself is bad.  I don't think they ever did that test, but I was okay with that because I'd tried to fill them up myself and they didn't hold air.  The guy at the service counter told me that they'd have to order the seal kit, which would take a few days for it to come in.  He didn't offer the price and I didn't ask because I knew he wouldn't know if he had to order it.  Besides, at that point I was in for a penny, in for a pound.  Two weeks pass.  I call the bike shop to inquire about my bike.  The same guy I dealt with told me it would be ready by the weekend.  That was last weekend.  Now it's been three weeks and  I'm getting anxious about it because I've got an off-road triathlon that I'm doing on March 22nd and I'd like to ride the bike a few times to train and get used to it.  I called again earlier in the week.  I've been totally nice about it, even though the guy told me wrong - by a lot - how soon it would be ready.  I also explained why I need it back really soon.  I don't think he believed me that I had a race.  Anyway, I called earlier this week and the guy knew who I was, that I'd been calling and the history of what he'd told me.  He said it would be ready "tomorrow."  "Great," I said.  "See you tomorrow when I get off work."  So I go into the bike shop, this is Tuesday, and go back to the service counter and tell the guy I'm there to pick up my bike.  You can guess what happened next.  He told me that it wasn't ready yet.  I'm pretty pissed, but I know that it is important to stay nice because the asshole route doesn't ever pay dividends.  The guy tells me that he is going to come in early the next morning so he can do my bike and then he goes into a litany of excuses, "short-handed," "customers interrupting," blah, blah, blah.  I really want to tell him - "I don't give a fuck about any of that shit.  That's not my fucking problem.  I need my bike back.  Find a way to get it done!"  Instead, I told the guy that I understood and that I'd be back the next day to pick it up.  So I go in during my lunch hour on Wednesday and I go back to the service counter.  The guy is there and he says that my bike is ready.  He goes to the back and gets it and wheels it out.  I can see that the forks are fully extended so I know they are fixed.  I try to look the bike over a bit, but it's kind of awkward because there are other customers waiting for the service guy and trying to get his attention.  Plus, the guy is uncomfortable because he knows that I'm a borderline dissatisfied customer and he's distracted by the other customers.  I can't really take a hard look to make sure everything has been done.  I ask, almost in passing, if they did the tuneup too and the guy tells me they did.  I notice that there are black smudges on the frame, which were there when I dropped it off, that they didn't clean off.  Cleaning was supposed to be part of the tuneup package but I figured that if that was the only thing they didn't get to then I was alright with it.  Most of the reason has to do with the fact that I'm instinctively nice - I don't want to impose on anyone or make them feel bad.  The other reason is that as an American consumer I am getting sensitized to take what the fuck I get and like it.  Plus, what was I going to do, tell the guy to take the bike back and clean the smudges off the frame?  Am I going to be that guy?  It wasn't a mechanical issue, which is what was most important.  I was done with this place anyway and I just wanted to get out of there.  I would clean the frame myself.  I took my invoice up the cash register to pay.  It was over $200 - $30 for two sets of new seals for the fork, $80 for labor to replace the seals and the $70 for the tuneup.  It was more that I would have liked to have paid, but it was too late to dispute it or anything now.  When I got home I took a harder look at the bike.  As part of the tuneup package they were supposed to adjust the brakes and the derailleurs, clean the grease off of moving parts and lube everything.  I rubbed my fingers on the chain, which was black with old grease, and it was dry as a bone.  They didn't even put any oil on the fucking chain!  They didn't do the tuneup at all!  Fuckers!!!  After all this shit - waiting over three weeks, being lied to multiple times about when it would be ready, making a futile trip over there to pick it up and paying out the ass - they didn't even do the fucking tuneup that I'd paid $70 for!!  Man I was pissed.  The next morning I called the bike shop and talked to the service guy - it's been the same guy from the beginning.  He's supposedly the manager of the service department.  I told the guy who I was and I heard the slightest little reaction come through the receiver.  Either he knew that he'd fucked me and that he was about to pay the piper or he just hated dealing with my overly demanding ass.  And by overly demanding I mean "expects to get what he paid for."  I decided, even after all the shit, to give the guy a chance to save face.  I asked him if I was supposed to bring my bike back in for the tuneup or what because I'd inspected the bike and it hadn't been cleaned and there was no sign of any lubrication anywhere.  Then I asked him point blank if they had done the tuneup.  His response was that he'd sent my bike to the back to where the actual service techs work on the bikes and he'd "hoped" that they were going to do the tuneup in addition to the work on the forks.  Hoping they'd get it done and getting it done are two different things.  So they hadn't done it and the guy was hoping to skate by on the fact that he had plausible deniability and the fact that I probably wouldn't notice.  He told me to bring it back in and they'd turn it around the same day.  I have since taken it back in and picked it back up.  I inspected it again.  I saw oil on the chain, but that's all I could really tell had been done.

2. I went into Home Depot last night to buy some PVC pipe to build a bike stand for my new bike.  I also needed to ask a question of the garden department regarding some palm trees that I'm thinking of buying to use at our wedding reception.  I go over to the garden center and look around for someone wearing an orange apron.  There was no one to be found.  I went back in the store and I saw this tall acne-pocked kid wearing an orange apron standing at a computer terminal.  Having worked at a Home Depot before I knew that there were two departments in the garden area - Inside Garden and Outside Garden.  I also knew that this kid probably worked in Inside Garden and wouldn't be able to answer my question.  (Hell, even if he worked in Outside Garden he probably wouldn't have been able to answer my question.)  I decided to approach him anyway - it was my only option.  So I go up to him and say, "Excuse me, do you work in the garden center?"  He doesn't even turn to look at me and says, "Yeah, hold on a minute."  And then immediately raises a store phone to his face and yells "Famisha!" into it.  I should be used to this kind of treatment by now, but it is still shocking to be treated like shit in any setting.  I think about it for a second and then I tell the kid, "Nevermind," and I start walking off.  I hear him do this "pffft" thing, which, translated, means "you are an overly demanding asshole and I don't respect you."  So I turn to the kid and say, "You know, you don't have to be a rude asshole about it."  To which he responds, "You're the asshole."  So I turn fully around and start walking back toward him and ask, "What did you say? What did you call me?"  He says, "I said that you are one."  I tell him, "We'll see about that."  Then I marched over to the customer service desk to demand to speak to a manager.  That's where I waited while the only employee stayed on the phone, apparently on hold, refusing to look at me, while pretending to help this slack-jawed old ignorant bitch on some inane issue.  As I'm standing there I try to calculate whether it's worth it to pursue.  The longer I stood there the less worth it the pursuit was.  And besides, what was going to happen?  Some tired manager who is totally burned out is going to come out and pretend to care about my problem or some snotty employee?  Is it really going to change anything?  Is this kid going to learn a lesson?  I decided to just go get my shit and get the hell out of there.  At the very least I probably should have gone down the street to Lowe's, but it's the same there.

These two situations lead me to the first of my million-dollar ideas:  The Executive Shopper's Club.  This would be a retail store and service center for a huge array of products.  Outdoor and recreational, appliances, computers and electronics, just about anything, but it would focus on bigger ticket items and things that require at least a little bit of expertise.  This would essentially be the big box retailer of big box retailers.  The customers would have to pay a membership fee, which would be pretty steep - like $1000.  The employees in each section would have to have knowledge and experience with the products.  Our training programs on these products would be extensive.  Even though the stores would be big and industrial-looking, we would have comfortable chairs and free espresso drinks and bottled water.  The customers would be treated like long-lost friends and guests.  I would personally see to it that a culture of customer appreciation was the foundation of the business.  That, and superior knowledge and advice when it came to the products we sold.  These two things, along with literature that we would produce with product information and comparisons, would essentially take all of the risk out of making any large purchase.  We would have an open return policy - no hassle, no bullshit, but there would be a standard restocking fee on items that were resaleable - no exceptions.  We would have an in-store ombudsman to handle customer disputes or problems and a large dedicated staff to deal with these issues.  Customer service in my company wouldn't be a means to an end - profit - it would be a company philosophy built around the idea that if you do the right thing good things will happen and money will come.  Inevitably, you are going to get customers who try to fuck you, and we would let them.  Once.  If a customer didn't agree with the ombudsman's decision (and believe me, the ombudsman is going to be doing what is fair) then we would still give them what they wanted, but they would have to forfeit their membership and would never be allowed to get another one.  Not only would the Executive Shopper's Club become a very prestigious place to buy just about everything - it would be a status symbol to be a member - but it would also represent the all-time best value and shopping experience ever available in the history of the world.  Imagine being able to go into a place and buy something knowing that you are making the best possible purchasing decision that you can make withough question.  That's my vision.

The other million dollar idea I had was related to my bike stand project.  People always use PVC pipe to build things, but that is a purpose for which that product was not meant.  So my idea is to create a product that is meant for that purpose.  It would be like tinker toys for adults.  A few sizes of tubes or rods and the fittings to put them together and maybe even colors.  UV resistant, durable, attractive and extremely versatile.  How has this product not been created already?

Pwned

Living in the World

I don't post about my job very often; that's by design.  I also don't post about my relationship with my future wife very much either.  Both for a lot of the same reasons.  Probably the biggest is that it could be dangerous.  I don't want to lose my job, or more importantly, my license to practice law.  And I really, really don't want to lose Audra.  So even though there are a lot of interesting and funny stories I could tell about these two very big parts of my life, I steer clear of those topics on this public forum.  This is somewhat surprising given my lack of discipline when it comes to most things, at least my my standards.

I've found myself in a lot of complicated and difficult situations in my job.  Situations where I can't trust, or don't believe, the people I have access to who are supposed to be the ones I can trust and believe.  At those times I'm left totally to myself, where I have to make the call and I know that I'll have to live with it.  For most young attorneys - at least I think this the way it works - they are insulated from a lot of front-line decisions by a more senior lead attorney who calls all the shots and bears the ultimate responsibility for anything that happens.  Not so with me.  For better or worse, I'm in a firm where the overhead numbers won't allow for that kind of insulation and security.  Either that, or everyone's just lazy.  So I've been on the front lines a lot in my young career.  I'm a cherry who's only been in country a few days and sent to lead deadly missions in the bush.

It's no accident that I'm in this situation.  In a way, I wanted it.  I've never accepted the leadership (or guidance or advice) of others very well.  My way is to throw myself in headlong and mostly get it right because of the tools I've got.  The parts I get wrong are usually only scratches and even then I am pretty resourceful at field dressing wounds.

A couple of days ago I was in a firefight and I was severely outgunned.  That's a bad feeling and hard for me to admit.  Opposing counsel, there were two of them, each had twenty years in the practice on me.  And one of them was a specialist in the area that the case revolved around.  My clients had the most to lose and they had been painted as the bad guys from day one.  To make matters worse, one of my clients, the most important one, had not shown up as he was supposed to.  I had promised everyone that he'd be there and it put me in a very bad position.

This was a mediation, which to a lot of people, and even a lot of lawyers, is a benign proceeding.  Not so, in my experience.  A mediation is like the committee work of Congress.  It's where the real shit gets done.  It's where the how much gets decided, and that's what it's all about.  Parties and lawyers alike are allowed to spew their bile and use their dirty tactics without the Rules and without a referee.  If a trial is a boxing match, mediation is a street fight.  Perhaps the worst part about it is the mediator, the neutral third.  The party line is that mediation is a fantastic development in the world of litigation.  It has proven very effective at settling cases, which, in theory, means that litigation costs for consumers of legal services should go down.  It means that there is less pressure on a taxed court system.  And it means that parties are allowed to control their own fates.  What is lost, I think, is the forces at play that cause cases to settle at mediation are fear and intimidation; mostly on the part of the mediator himself.  "Good" mediators are masters at subtle fear mongering and manipulation.  When they are in a room with a party and the party's attorney what they mostly talk about is how bad the case is for them and why they are likely to lose and what will happen to them if they do.  There is a euphamistic acronym for this:  BATNA - Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement.  Put in real terms:  what's going to happen to you if you don't whip out the checkbook today?  And, oh by the way - it's going to be real bad.

Experienced lawyers will sit back and allow the mediator to scare the hell out of their clients.  That makes it more likely that their client will pay enough to settle the case, which is good for the lawyer because it means, at the very least, if they are overworked like most lawyers, that they'll be able to get one more file off their desk.  And besides, by that point they've earned enough in fees on the case.  It's also good because the lawyer gets to look like he's done a good job when the final number comes in lower than the really scary number that the mediator has been throwing around.  Everyone wins, except for the client.

I can't play it that way.  At least not now, and hopefully not ever.  I spar with the mediator fiercely over why my client's case isn't as bad as they say and why the facts and the law of the case actually point to a much more favorable result.  Some mediators have given me some strange looks like, "Boy, don't you know how this game is played?"  I like to think that after we all leave and they break out the scotch that they laugh about me and quote from Platoon, "What we got here is a cru-sader!"  Maybe so, misguided and hopeless as it is.

What really sucks is to learn, after you've gone to bat for them, that your client is a lying thief.  It's one thing when they lie to the the other side, but when you find out (and you always do) that they've been withholding things from you, or worse, outright lying to your face, it's a real kick in the gut.  No one wants to believe me when I tell them to tell me everything, even if they think it's bad.  I guess no one believes that anyone is capable of representing someone who they think ill of.  When I think of that I think of a speech my first-year torts professor gave to my class.  He read a letter written by a Japanese prisoner of war during WWII who had been accused of heinous war crimes against American soldiers in the Pacific.  The letter was written to the American soldier who was legally trained and appointed in the field to represent the Japanese soldier at the military trial.  The letter was written to thank the American lawer and described how he had done his best to represent him and that even though he'd been found guilty and was sentenced to be executed, that he respected the effort and the impartial ability of the American lawyer to vigorously represent him despite the fact that the American knew that his buddies had been tortured and killed by this man, or others like him.  I still get goosebumps when I think about that story.

Someone once told me that I was a person of high integrity.  I don't know if it's true or not, but since then I've made integrity my ultimate fallback position. I've told clients many times when they've asked me to do something untoward that I just won't do it.  And I hope I never do.  I know every time I tell a client that I refuse to do something that I could lose the client, but secretly I hope that it builds respect in them for me, for their sake.  I always get a kick out of the puzzled looks I get that say, "But you are a lawyer.  I thought you were supposed to be a fucking scumbag."  I haven't had a client leave yet.

Anyway, I've had a rough week and I suppose this little piece is just my therapeutic venting.

Thanks for readin'.