Objectively intelligent.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Please, you first. You may need to go into the office, I don't.

Ah, but the people who made the job their lives, who get off on being in charge and walking around seeing people who are on some level working for them -- have you no sympathy for them? Where will they find fulfillment? Where will they find human interaction of the controlling sort they desire? Where will those 5'7 nebbishes be respected but in the halls of the office? This out-of-office working situation is really hard on those people who identify themselves by what they do. If you refuse to pay them fealty by appearing, they question their importance.

Face time isn't about you, you selfish prick. It's about gratifying management with the delusion that you'd still come into the office and respect them if you won the lottery tomorrow... Allowing them to believe you'd spend even a second in their company if not for the commercial endeavor in which you are both engaged.

Occasionally, there's a story about some worker winning or inheriting a ton of money and telling her boss to fuck off while resigning. This is misguided. One should simply leave. Never resign. Never take a call from the office. Just leave. This sends the proper message on how much one cares about management, the endeavor, the company, the system. Just walk away.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Ah, but the people who made the job their lives, who get off on being in charge and walking around seeing people who are on some level working for them -- have you no sympathy for them? Where will they find fulfillment? Where will they find human interaction of the controlling sort they desire? Where will those 5'7 nebbishes be respected but in the halls of the office? This out-of-office working situation is really hard on those people who identify themselves by what they do. If you refuse to pay them fealty by appearing, they question their importance.

Face time isn't about you, you selfish prick. It's about gratifying management with the delusion that you'd still come into the office and respect them if you won the lottery tomorrow... Allowing them to believe you'd spend even a second in their company if not for the commercial endeavor in which you are both engaged.

Occasionally, there's a story about some worker winning or inheriting a ton of money and telling her boss to fuck off while resigning. This is misguided. One should simply leave. Never resign. Never take a call from the office. Just leave. This sends the proper message on how much one cares about management, the endeavor, the company, the system. Just walk away.

What have I ever done to make you this angry with me?

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Ah, but the people who made the job their lives, who get off on being in charge and walking around seeing people who are on some level working for them -- have you no sympathy for them? Where will they find fulfillment? Where will they find human interaction of the controlling sort they desire? Where will those 5'7 nebbishes be respected but in the halls of the office? This out-of-office working situation is really hard on those people who identify themselves by what they do. If you refuse to pay them fealty by appearing, they question their importance.

Face time isn't about you, you selfish prick. It's about gratifying management with the delusion that you'd still come into the office and respect them if you won the lottery tomorrow... Allowing them to believe you'd spend even a second in their company if not for the commercial endeavor in which you are both engaged.

Occasionally, there's a story about some worker winning or inheriting a ton of money and telling her boss to fuck off while resigning. This is misguided. One should simply leave. Never resign. Never take a call from the office. Just leave. This sends the proper message on how much one cares about management, the endeavor, the company, the system. Just walk away.

Wow, full confession, this is really excellent work. Chilling in how spot-on it is. Really nailed it. This is like Chris Nolan level prescient.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Ah, but the people who made the job their lives, who get off on being in charge and walking around seeing people who are on some level working for them -- have you no sympathy for them? Where will they find fulfillment? Where will they find human interaction of the controlling sort they desire? Where will those 5'7 nebbishes be respected but in the halls of the office? This out-of-office working situation is really hard on those people who identify themselves by what they do. If you refuse to pay them fealty by appearing, they question their importance.

Face time isn't about you, you selfish prick. It's about gratifying management with the delusion that you'd still come into the office and respect them if you won the lottery tomorrow... Allowing them to believe you'd spend even a second in their company if not for the commercial endeavor in which you are both engaged.

Occasionally, there's a story about some worker winning or inheriting a ton of money and telling her boss to fuck off while resigning. This is misguided. One should simply leave. Never resign. Never take a call from the office. Just leave. This sends the proper message on how much one cares about management, the endeavor, the company, the system. Just walk away.

The emails are continuing. I legitimately got an email that says this:

"While we value remote work, this pandemic established that in-office work will always be necessary . . . ."


However, in New York, everybody is telecommuting. The metro north parking lots are empty. The trains are empty. I see no reason anyone should risk their health working in a place that has not established safe protocols just to stroke somebody's ego.

But I am going to take the approach that I think underlies your post.

I could retire today. It would be a far less comfortable retirement than if I retired in 5-10 years. But I am not going to risk my health to stroke somebody's needle dick. Everybody faces risks, but even Walmart provides a safer work environment.

I am just not going to respond, continue to work from home and if the direct deposit stops . . . it's been a nice run. But no discussion, no responding.

"A lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep."

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

The emails are continuing. I legitimately got an email that says this:

"While we value remote work, this pandemic established that in-office work will always be necessary . . . ."

However, in New York, everybody is telecommuting. The metro north parking lots are empty. The trains are empty. I see no reason anyone should risk their health working in a place that has not established safe protocols just to stroke somebody's ego.

But I am going to take the approach that I think underlies your post.

I could retire today. It would be a far less comfortable retirement than if I retired in 5-10 years. But I am not going to risk my health to stroke somebody's needle dick. Everybody faces risks, but even Walmart provides a safer work environment.

I am just not going to respond, continue to work from home and if the direct deposit stops . . . it's been a nice run. But no discussion, no responding.

"A lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep."

Not only is it ridiculous for any law office to demand people come in to work, but it's counterproductive.

I can get done in surf shorts and a t-shirt in my home office the same amount of work I'd complete commuting to and from an office in half of the time. I had two offices at one point, and I never went to either except to meet with people, and even then I found that to be a waste of time.

I get the sales component of offices and in-person meetings. I'm told I'm pretty, I can speak convincingly, and I know how to close. I get that shit. People want to see and hear what they're buying. But after I'm done glad handing, Let Me Leave. Making me stay and hang out behind a desk saps my fucking soul.

I don't want to be in a fucking office with a bunch of people, sitting in artificial light, feeling like I have to get things done while I'm there. On my own schedule, I might work for a couple hours, then do a twenty minute erg piece, work again for an hour, then ride the bike a bit. This keeps the mind calm and allows creative solutions to complex issues to emerge in one's brain.

If I had a twenty for every time the solution to a complex legal question popped into my head while running on the elipitcal machine, I could buy several closets full of the highest quality corporate casual clothes people are compelled against their will to purchase to go to an office and hang out with old divorced dickheads and social invalids who have No Other Place To Be.

We aren't wired to live and die within office towers, artificially cleaved to people we'd never even look at, let alone speak to, but for a shared commercial endeavor. The lonely old men need to understand this. They need to grasp that some of us have internalized the rule that no one ever died wishing he'd spent more time at the office... and that it's a sad rule that no one should have to internalize.

We all perform so much better when left to work at our own pace. Particularly A Personalities, which, though I'd love to claim I wasn't, I unfortunately am. I've been up since 7 and already knocked off four of the eight things I needed to do today. Why the fuck do I need to get dressed, hop in a car, burn gas driving to work, wasting at least an hour of time, and then get arranged behind my desk, talk to a bunch of people I don't want to talk to, and do all of it within a building with an atrocious fossil fuel footprint?

My pet theory on offices is that people who like to avoid having metrics applied to them love to be in offices. They can act important at meetings, make political allegiances, gossip, and find ways to climb the ladder while the rest of us who actually create the dollars do the real work.

This attitude, along with intentional acts (refusing partnership and completely shifting careers/practice areas a few times), has cost me millions. I understand that. But it's also cost my employers. Had they allowed me to work as I felt like working, they'd have gotten a lot more out of me. Instead, they always want you to make it your life - make you do it the way they did it.*

I'd rather die.

________
* There's a hazing element to it. Old fucks demanding the kids suffer as they did. Well, count me out of that shit. I never hazed anyone when I was in a fraternity, and as I recall it, the guys who got off on doing that shit were always the biggest tools and losers. Maybe I'm nuts. It just seems that anyone who wants to make anyone else act a certain way, or exert power over another person, is somewhere between deeply strange and sociopathic.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Not only is it ridiculous for any law office to demand people come in to work, but it's counterproductive.

I can get done in surf shorts and a t-shirt in my home office the same amount of work I'd complete commuting to and from an office in half of the time. I had two offices at one point, and I never went to either except to meet with people, and even then I found that to be a waste of time.

I get the sales component of offices and in-person meetings. I'm told I'm pretty, I can speak convincingly, and I know how to close. I get that shit. People want to see and hear what they're buying. But after I'm done glad handing, Let Me Leave. Making me stay and hang out behind a desk saps my fucking soul.

I don't want to be in a fucking office with a bunch of people, sitting in artificial light, feeling like I have to get things done while I'm there. On my own schedule, I might work for a couple hours, then do a twenty minute erg piece, work again for an hour, then ride the bike a bit. This keeps the mind calm and allows creative solutions to complex issues to emerge in one's brain.

If I had a twenty for every time the solution to a complex legal question popped into my head while running on the elipitcal machine, I could buy several closets full of the highest quality corporate casual clothes people are compelled against their will to purchase to go to an office and hang out with old divorced dickheads and social invalids who have No Other Place To Be.

We aren't wired to live and die within office towers, artificially cleaved to people we'd never even look at, let alone speak to, but for a shared commercial endeavor. The lonely old men need to understand this. They need to grasp that some of us have internalized the rule that no one ever died wishing he'd spent more time at the office... and that it's a sad rule that no one should have to internalize.

We all perform so much better when left to work at our own pace. Particularly A Personalities, which, though I'd love to claim I wasn't, I unfortunately am. I've been up since 7 and already knocked off four of the eight things I needed to do today. Why the fuck do I need to get dressed, hop in a car, burn gas driving to work, wasting at least an hour of time, and then get arranged behind my desk, talk to a bunch of people I don't want to talk to, and do all of it within a building with an atrocious fossil fuel footprint?

My pet theory on offices is that people who like to avoid having metrics applied to them love to be in offices. They can act important at meetings, make political allegiances, gossip, and find ways to climb the ladder while the rest of us who actually create the dollars do the real work.

This attitude, along with intentional acts (refusing partnership and completely shifting careers/practice areas a few times), has cost me millions. I understand that. But it's also cost my employers. Had they allowed me to work as I felt like working, they'd have gotten a lot more out of me. Instead, they always want you to make it your life - make you do it the way they did it.*

I'd rather die.

________
* There's a hazing element to it. Old fucks demanding the kids suffer as they did. Well, count me out of that shit. I never hazed anyone when I was in a fraternity, and as I recall it, the guys who got off on doing that shit were always the biggest tools and losers. Maybe I'm nuts. It just seems that anyone who wants to make anyone else act a certain way, or exert power over another person, is somewhere between deeply strange and sociopathic.

O.K., fine. Not everything you say is completely wrong.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

O.K., fine. Not everything you say is completely wrong.

He called himself pretty. Don't you feel just a little threatened by that?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

He called himself pretty. Don't you feel just a little threatened by that?

Actually, a very funny head of HR at a place where I was in-house called me that. She'd actually tell me to shut up when I spoke during meetings. "Did I ask you to speak? Sit there and look pretty." Probably the only HR person I truly respected and thought was super-talented. She always knew more than I did, and she never let me forget it.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

O.K., fine. Not everything you say is completely wrong.

What about riding the elliptical? That offends me.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

What about riding the elliptical? That offends me.

Wreck a knee in a violent skiing accident and get back to me on that, Viking.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Wreck a knee in a violent skiing accident and get back to me on that, Viking.

Knee surgery at 17. Ambulance picked me up on the soccer field. I remind the kids that I was leading the team in scoring when that happened.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Not only is it ridiculous for any law office to demand people come in to work, but it's counterproductive.

I can get done in surf shorts and a t-shirt in my home office the same amount of work I'd complete commuting to and from an office in half of the time. I had two offices at one point, and I never went to either except to meet with people, and even then I found that to be a waste of time.

I get the sales component of offices and in-person meetings. I'm told I'm pretty, I can speak convincingly, and I know how to close. I get that shit. People want to see and hear what they're buying. But after I'm done glad handing, Let Me Leave. Making me stay and hang out behind a desk saps my fucking soul.

I don't want to be in a fucking office with a bunch of people, sitting in artificial light, feeling like I have to get things done while I'm there. On my own schedule, I might work for a couple hours, then do a twenty minute erg piece, work again for an hour, then ride the bike a bit. This keeps the mind calm and allows creative solutions to complex issues to emerge in one's brain.

If I had a twenty for every time the solution to a complex legal question popped into my head while running on the elipitcal machine, I could buy several closets full of the highest quality corporate casual clothes people are compelled against their will to purchase to go to an office and hang out with old divorced dickheads and social invalids who have No Other Place To Be.

We aren't wired to live and die within office towers, artificially cleaved to people we'd never even look at, let alone speak to, but for a shared commercial endeavor. The lonely old men need to understand this. They need to grasp that some of us have internalized the rule that no one ever died wishing he'd spent more time at the office... and that it's a sad rule that no one should have to internalize.

We all perform so much better when left to work at our own pace. Particularly A Personalities, which, though I'd love to claim I wasn't, I unfortunately am. I've been up since 7 and already knocked off four of the eight things I needed to do today. Why the fuck do I need to get dressed, hop in a car, burn gas driving to work, wasting at least an hour of time, and then get arranged behind my desk, talk to a bunch of people I don't want to talk to, and do all of it within a building with an atrocious fossil fuel footprint?

My pet theory on offices is that people who like to avoid having metrics applied to them love to be in offices. They can act important at meetings, make political allegiances, gossip, and find ways to climb the ladder while the rest of us who actually create the dollars do the real work.

This attitude, along with intentional acts (refusing partnership and completely shifting careers/practice areas a few times), has cost me millions. I understand that. But it's also cost my employers. Had they allowed me to work as I felt like working, they'd have gotten a lot more out of me. Instead, they always want you to make it your life - make you do it the way they did it.*

I'd rather die.

________
* There's a hazing element to it. Old fucks demanding the kids suffer as they did. Well, count me out of that shit. I never hazed anyone when I was in a fraternity, and as I recall it, the guys who got off on doing that shit were always the biggest tools and losers. Maybe I'm nuts. It just seems that anyone who wants to make anyone else act a certain way, or exert power over another person, is somewhere between deeply strange and sociopathic.

Really good stuff.

While I see the attraction of canceling all my work, and just strutting around the office for face-time and doing lunches being that my office was a slightly smaller superspreader event than Sturgis, gonna have to pass.

It's all a power thing. The milenial paralegals have left in droves and the ones who havent quit have refused coming into the office. So what do you do of you if you need someone to bully? You hunt for the weak and the old. You send emails like "You need to file the original documents in the files".

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Really good stuff.

While I see the attraction of canceling all my work, and just strutting around the office for face-time and doing lunches being that my office was a slightly smaller superspreader event than Sturgis, gonna have to pass.

It's all a power thing. The milenial paralegals have left in droves and the ones who havent quit have refused coming into the office. So what do you do of you if you need someone to bully? You hunt for the weak and the old. You send emails like "You need to file the original documents in the files".

I'm with you. I was pretty solid politically. I could do face time quite well. But I felt like I wasn't really there. I mean, I was at the lunch, I was talking to the client, but I was always daydreaming. I'd be thinking, "What would these people look like naked?", "Suppose I just started screaming for no reason? How long before security took me away?" I used to get really bored during some meetings and actually have panic attacks from it. I'd just start thinking shit and couldn't stop.

Look at my suit. How about the hair? Here's a bunch of complex sounding words. I'll be economical, so you'll think I'm smart. You already do, because I've been listening while the others were talking. (I really want to pick my nose... I can feel this really crusty one just waiting to be plucked out.)

Now listen to me while I spin - ever so slightly - your dubious layman's litigation strategy. The managing partner is going to get excited too because he knows that's a really expensive idea, but it's yours, and we're making a sale, so it's okay to say we'll research it thoroughly. Ka-ching!

I'm taking notes. I'll throw them away afterward. Mostly gibberish. Maybe I'll put them in a file.

Let's walk through the place, shall we? Look at the people on those conference calls. That glass is really polished, isn't it? Stare into those offices -- be sure to check out Todd's. Todd's all fucked up. And not terribly bright. Future nervous breakdown. But doesn't he look studious?

You pay us to think. Oh, we're thinking. So much thinking. I'm thinking about fucking my girlfriend right now. I'm thinking those are terrible shoes.

Now let's get in the elevator and go get some shitty lunch in a place that has cushy booths.

Kill me.

But back to your point, if you need someone to bully, if that can't be helped and you can't go on without that fix, well... I don't care about you. I have no pity on you. I am enjoying the idea that you are going through withdrawal. Because I think everyone is redeemable, I hope you can get over that addiction and find a better life. But I don't care if you do or you don't because, to borrow from Roger Waters, "you're just another sad old man, all alone, and dying of cancer [or heart disease]."

If a person can't figure out how to enjoy life, if he can't early in youth surmise that time is the most important commodity, he's probably hopeless. I don't know what you do with that person.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm with you. I was pretty solid politically. I could do face time quite well. ...
Kill me.

But now it's not just time-wasting, it has the potential to cause physical harm, for no real reason. Yeah, I was OK with getting up a little early to do the face time, driving in an hour and a half from a remote dep at 4:00 PM just to show my face, but NOW, in a place with no protective protocols, it's a little bit of a grim proposition to head down to superspreader II there to do something you can adequately do at home.

Also, now we are doing depositions and court appearances remotely using Zoom, Skype and a host of other platforms. But our computers at work do not have the equipment to participate. So the suggestion was to "bring your home equipment to work."

But back to your point, if you need someone to bully, if that can't be helped and you can't go on without that fix, well... I don't care about you. I have no pity on you.

That's not me, that's the folks singing the siren song of "come to the office". Yeah, I am lashed to my bed, Beats Pro X in my ears, realizing this is a hill I will make my stand on.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

So the suggestion was to "bring your home equipment to work."

That's too stupid to countenance with a response. Send them back a clip of Uncle Jeff from Veep laughing hysterically at Jonah.

That's not me, that's the folks singing the siren song of "come to the office". Yeah, I am lashed to my bed, Beats Pro X in my ears, realizing this is a hill I will make my stand on.

The "you" there is the pathetic old fucker begging you to come back to the office, not you you.