Showing posts with label Mid-Week at Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mid-Week at Work. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Lex Anteinternet: Mid Week at Work. Three Mirrors.
Lex Anteinternet: Mid Week at Work. Three Mirrors.:
Mid Week at Work. Three Mirrors.
This blog, as we occasionally note has the intent . . . to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?
Well, okay, clearly its strayed way beyond that, but it's retained that purpose and is focused on the period from around 1900 until around 1920, which makes a lot other things, indeed most things, off topic.
But this past week there were a collection of things we ran across that really do sort of focus in on that a bit, and given us an example of how things have changed.
Taking them in no particular order, we have the story of baseball player Tommy Brown, about whom we noted:
Tommy "Buckshot" Brown as born on December 6, 1927 and January 15, 2025, and gives us a really good glimpse of the world of the late 1930s and 1940s. He'd dropped out of school at age 12 in 1939 and went to work with his uncle as a dockworker. Being a longshoreman is a notoriously dangerous job and frankly the occupation was heavily influenced by the mob at the time. There's no earthly way that you could be hired as a longshoreman at age 12 now, nor should there be. But life was like that then. My father's father, who was born in 1907, I think, went to work at age 13.
People did that.
If you are a longshoreman at age 12, you are a 12 year old adult.
He must have been a good baseball player to be hired on in the Majors at age 16. If that happened now, you'd have to be one of the greatest players alive in the game. But this was during World War Two, and baseball was scraping.
It was scraping as the military was. The service had taken pretty much all the able bodied men who weren't in a critical war industry. We don't like to think this about "the Greatest Generation" now, but by 1944 and 1945, the Army was inducting me who were only marginally capable of being soldiers in normal times. Men who were legally blind in one eye and who were psychotic were being taken in, and I'm not exaggerating. The recent incident we reported here of a soldier going mad and killing Japanese POWs makes sense in this context. It's relatively hard to get into the Army now. After World War Two men inducted were in good physical and mental shape. By the last days of the Second World War not all were and we knew it.
Brown's story also tells us a lot about what economic life was like mid century. Obviously, baseball didn't make Brown rich, and there was no post baseball career associated with sports. He went to work in a factory.
Going to work in a factory, in the 50s, was a pretty solid American job, and another story we touched on relates to this.
Americans of our age, and indeed since the 1950s, have really convinced themselves that American Ingenuity and native smartness caused us to have the best economy in the world in the third quarter of the 20th Century, and that if only we returned to the conditions of the 50s, we would again.
Well, the conditions of the 1950s were a lot like the conditions of the post war 1940s. Every major city in the world, save for American and Canadian ones, had been damaged, and many had been bombed flat. It's not as if Stuttgart, Stalingrad, or Osaka were in good shape. We would have had to nearly intentionally mess up not to be the world's dominant economy and that went on all the way into the 1970s. The UK did not really recover from World War Two, in part due to bad economic decisions, until the 1960s. West Germany, ironically, recovered much quicker, but in no small part due to the return of refugee German economists who intentionally ignored American economic advice. Japan emerged from the devastation in the 70s. Italy really started to in the 60s.
Many of these countries, when they did, emerged with brand new economies as things were brand new. Japan is a good example, but then so is Italy, which had been a shockingly backwater dump until the mid 50s.
Russia, arguably, has never recovered, helping to explain its national paranoia.
The thing is, however, that the myth as been hugely damaging to Americans, who imagine that if we were only whiter and had "less regulation", etc., we'd be back in 1955. It's not going to happen, and we can't tariff our way back to the Eisenhower Era.
Of course, a lot of that post war era wasn't all that nifty. We had the Cold War, for example, and we often dealt with significant inflation, in no small part to inflate our way out of enormous Cold War defense budgets. . .which is probably a warning of what's to come when we realize we have to do something about the national debt.
Finally, we had posted on women and careers. Well, sort of. Anyhow, right after that we saw a Twitter post in which a young woman who posted on TikTok was being discussed for say:
I'm just so tired of living and working and doing this every single day, and having nothing — I don't know how I'm gonna get childcare when I have to work 40 hours a week because I can't even afford to feed my family as is. I'm having medical problems. I can't even get into the doctor because X rays and MRIs are 500, let alone a colonoscopy and endoscopy that I need. Like, I can't afford anything. My doctors cancel my appointments.
This world is just not meant to be like this, we need to make change for us, for each other. Please.
She's right.
This was under the heading, on her post, of "This world is a scam".
The world? Well, that's a little too broad. But the modernized industrialized Protestant work ethic world of the West? You bet.
Interestingly, one of the things she took flak for was buying some sort of baby bottle washer. It's been a long time since there were infants here, but when there were, I recall we tended to use sort of a disposable system, not real bottles. Having said that, I looked bottles up, and I can recall that we had some of the ones that are still offered, so I'm likely wrong. Anyhow, washing bottles is no doubt a pain.
The irate people, who are probably generally irate simply because she had children, and therefore is not fully lashed to the deck of the economic fraud everyone is participating in, seemed to think that this therefore meant she was rich. Not hardly.
FWIW, I looked up baby bottle washers too, and they really aren't that expensive. They no doubt probably save time. Time is money and of course we need to get those wimmen's out in the workplace where they can serve the machine.
Women only entered the workplace at this level in the first place after domestic machinery freed, or seperated, their labor from the house, where it had previously been necessary. You don't see women being criticized because their house contains a vacuum cleaner, or a dishwasher, even though this is not intrinsically different.
Indeed, this tends to be the one area where the right and the left are in agreement, and will yell about how society needs more baby warehouses, um daycares. The left, of course, goes further and discourages having children at all, and would indeed expand infanticide if it could, one of the issues that gave rise to the culture was and the populist revolve that we're still in.
At any rate, she's right. The world is not meant to be like this. We made this horror, and others. We can fix it.
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Lex Anteinternet: Occupational Identity and authenticity, a rambling...
Lex Anteinternet: Occupational Identity and authenticity, a rambling...:
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Spence's use of it, however, seem to have pushed into another sort of use, at least locally.
Occupational Identity and authenticity, a rambling thread.
Occupational identity refers to the conscious awareness of oneself as a worker. The process of occupational identity formation in modern societies can be difficult and stressful. However, establishing a strong, self-chosen, positive, and flexible occupational identity appears to be an important contributor to occupational success, social adaptation, and psychological well-being. Whereas previous research has demonstrated that the strength and clarity of occupational identity are major determinants of career decision-making and psychosocial adjustment, more attention needs to be paid to its structure and contents. We describe the structure of occupational identity using an extended identity status model, which includes the traditional constructs of moratorium and foreclosure, but also differentiates between identity diffusion and identity confusion as well as between static and dynamic identity achievement. Dynamic identity achievement appears to be the most adaptive occupational identity status, whereas confusion may be particularly problematic. We represent the contents of occupational identity via a theoretical taxonomy of general orientations toward work (Job, Social Ladder, Calling, and Career) determined by the prevailing work motivation (extrinsic vs. intrinsic) and preferred career dynamics (stability vs. growth). There is evidence that perception of work as a calling is associated with positive mental health, whereas perception of work as a career can be highly beneficial in terms of occupational success and satisfaction. We conclude that further research is needed on the structure and contents of occupational identity and we note that there is also an urgent need to address the issues of cross-cultural differences and intervention that have not received sufficient attention in previous research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)
Skorikov, V. B., & Vondracek, F. W. (2011). Occupational identity. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research.
How some lawyers apparently want the public to imagine them.
A number of relatively recent experiences has lead me to post this thread.
Posted around town are some billboards by a lawyer who is apparently specializing in plaintiffs' cases and criminal defense. I don't know him well, but I do know him.
When I first met him, he came across, quite frankly, as a metrosexual. I was quite surprised later on when I learned that he'd grown up on a ranch, and that he had a brother who now ran it. Now, however, he appears on billboards with a huge mustache in Western attire and saddle and portrays himself as a cowboy.
And I guess, by cowboy, I mean both real cowboys and the movie image of a cowboy.
Cowboys, and that is of course a real occupation, have been a popular cultural image since the late 19th Century. It's really interesting to me, as somebody who is a stockman and who has, accordingly, done a fair amount of cowboying, how cowboys continue to have a sort of wild image that they acquired in that time period. I love working stock, but most of it isn't anything like what movies portray. Maybe none of is, which is why the popular Yellowstone television show tends to anger me.
Of course, being a lawyer isn't anything like portrayed on television either.
Anyhow, I never tell people that "I'm a cowboy", but I find that I"m referred to that way, in the working sense of the word, from time to time. Or, people will refer to me as a rancher the same way from time to time. I'm always a bit flattered when they do, as if I'd had my ruthers in the world, which I haven't, that's what I would have done full time. I can't say its my occupational identity, however, as I'm well aware that I don't do it full time.
Affecting the image, however, miffs me. It's fake. If you simply come across that way, as you are naturally that way, that's one thing. Using it to promote your legal career, however, is bullshit.
Indeed, on real cowboys, not all of which are men, today:
Come As You Are
I guess this gets back in a way to this thread:
A Nation of Slobs. But then. . .
If you are going to be a lawyer, look like one, it's what you actually are.
And, by the way, there's at least one politician in the state that does the same thing, and I'd have the same criticism about. He's not a lawyer, but a commercial landlord.
Anyhow, it also gets to the weird association that the law picked up at some point with cowboys around here. I don't know when this occurred, but it might have been about the time that Gerry Spence's book Gunning for Justice came out. Spence didn't try to portray himself as a cowboy, but he did take on a Western influenced style, wearing a fringed jacket and a cowboy hat as a matter of course. Spence being sui generis has been able to consistently pull that off whereas those copying him tend to look absurd.
Anyhow, "Gunning for Justice" is actually a phrase that's been around for awhile and he didn't introduce it, as t his movie poster from 1948 demonstrates:
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On this, it's interesting that the cowboy image can be coopted this way, whereas other "manly" professions genuinely cannot. Fighters (boxers) have been a little bit, and I suppose that was an obviously one, but nobody, for example, talks about "whaling for justice".
Anyhow, dressing up like a cowboy for affect if you are not punching makes you a Rexall Ranger, not a cowboy.
While I'm at it, a Wyoming lawyer has affected the cowboy appearance for her columns on one of the local electronic journals. In this case, she's gone for the a way too big hat big pushed way up on the forehead so you can see the face look, which to a working stockman looks absolutely absurd. The same journal actually as a working rancher who wears his hat correctly as a columnist, and up until recently had another who did the same.
As a total side, if you notice in old cowboy portraits they often have their hats pushed to the back of their head, something moderns have wondered about, and for which they've even assumed that must be how they wore them.
No, the cameras were bad.
Isom Dart at Brown’s Hole Wyoming.
If they hadn't pushed them up some, their faces would have been in shadow
On identifies, I had a couple of odd encounters recently, one of which involves mental decline, and the other which involves gender attraction.
I'll start with the latter one first. There's an older profession that I don't know well, but who've I've been familiar with for a very long time. Somebody much more familiar with him than me dropped that he's a homosexual. I was shocked. Not because homosexuality in general shocks me, but because it was very well closeted for decades. Indeed, he's married with children.
I suppose that might be the rule for people north of 70, the closteting, that is.
In retrospect, it pretty quickly made sense for some reason. It just explained some personality quirks that I'd long noticed. The point of posting it here, however, is that if it's true, he's lived a lifetime with sort of an interesting strained identity.
He's not the only one I know of who is alleged to be in this category. Frankly a fairly well known person in the region is claimed by some insiders to fit this as well. In that case, it's more notable for his public opinions on things, which would be generally contrary to this inclination, assuming its true.
Now, I'll note that I have the typically misunderstood Catholic views on homosexuality. I'll also note that one of these individuals is a co-religious, and the other was. My only real point in noting all of this is to note that it must be a strain to live an entire life with a sort of false identity, assuming that its true in either case, which I can't really say for sure.
I'll also note that homosexuals of that vintage who did not present themselves as "gay", which is different, may have had a better understanding of marriage than many. Catholic Answers Hugh Barbour defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman to produce children for the worship of God, which while it may be more than that, that captures a lot of it. People like to say that before Obergefell homosexuals couldn't marry, but that's simply false, if we consider that marriage is a unique institution between two people capable of reproducing and bound to care for those they create.
Going on to occupations, I've also run across recently a situation in which I've been dealing with somebody whom, once again, I don't know that well but who is still working fulltime and whose clearly suffering from some compression loss in the psychological cylinders. I'm not their pal or anything but it's sad to watch. It's also sad to watch, however, somebody whose psychological identify is so closely identified with the practice of law, they can't leave it.
I've known more than one lawyer who practiced into advanced old age with no mental detriment. But it's also the case quite frankly that a person's physical clockworks, and often their mental ones, start to slip a bit after the hands hit 60 or so. I'm frankly not convinced at all that allowing people to practice a profession after some point in their 60s is a good thing, and I don't think people should carry on into their 70s. For one thing, it's just sad. Surely there was something else that interested them once.
Back to occupational identities.
One of the really minor features of this blog is the M65 Field Jackets in the wild. page. Minor.
I like M65 field jackets. When I was in the Guard I had at least six of them due to having bought two and having been issued four more. The reason I was issued four is that at Ft. Sill the switch from OG-107 to BDU was going on and we were issued OD field jackets. As soon as I got back, we were issued BDU field jackets, and told to keep the old ones.
I gave one of the OD ones to a girlfriend who had need of a jacket while I was in university, and then eventually I just got to big, i.e,. gained weight, or filled out, whatever, and couldn't wear the size I'd been issued. But I still had the next larger size, Large Regular.
Well, time, etc.
A surplus store here had a whole bunch of uniform items here before they went out of business and I bought several BDU ones. I just really like them. I picked up a OD one for my son, as they're a nice coat, but naively didn't for myself. The OD ones you can wear for daily wear really.
Well, here recently I found a Greek Lizard pattern one for sale and I bought it for hunting. Which meant that I had three woodland pattern ones, one desert pattern one (a gift of an old soldier) and a Lizard pattern one. Then I saw the current multicam pattern one for sale on Ebay, which I ordered. Finally, I decided I needed an OD one and bought one of those off of ebay.
Some of these have the US Army tape on them. One, the multicam one, came with paratrooper wings from the former and his name tape. I took the name tape off and the paratrooper wings. I'm not a paratrooper. The OD one came with a name tape, the U.S. Army tape, and two unit patches. I took everything off but the US Army tape.
For reasons that are silly, and I can't explain, I ended up ordering name tapes. I can now sew those on.
Why? I'm not sure. I don't need name tapes on old uniform items for any rational reason. Rather, I was required to do it back in the day, and I still feel like am now. Indeed, it would make a lot more sense to take the US Army patch off the OD one so I can use it for its intended purpose of regular daily wear.
Odd
Well, I found a M1943 replica on sale and ordered it. It won't have any patches.
I need to stop buying them.
As a further aside, a Carhartt coat is much warmer. My old one is pretty much blown out now. It was a gift from my wife and I've been resisting getting a new one, even though I need to. Guess I'm hoping for another one as a gift so that I don't have to buy it.
Back to occupational identities for a moment. It occured to me how, when I was young, men had much less of one. They genuinely seemed more well rounded than men do today
People always like to claim things were different, if not outright perfect, when they were young. But it does seem to me that genuinely men were quite family oriented. That meant that their professions and occupations were focused on providing for their families, but it also meant that their professions tended not to be all that they were, including to themselves. I can vaguely recall some men who were very career oriented being criticized for it.
Every man that I knew when I was young tended to almost be identified by a collection of interests. Medical professionals were often hunters and fishermen. Indeed, I don't know one who wasn't. Some were dramatically so. Men who had come into professions from farms and ranches tended to still be identified with their origin and retain some contacts with that life. I knew a fireman who was a pretty good amature geologist, another who was a car restorer, and another who was the first long distance runner I ever knew. More recently professionals, or at least lawyers, have almost become cartoons of themselves in some instances, only engaging in the law or perhaps one activity that's sort of socially approved for lawyers.
It isn't good.
Last Sunday I ran this item:
Pack Animals - the 🇩🇪 German Mountain Infantry Brigade
I knew that the Bundesheer has a mountain infantry brigade.
I've sometimes thought that if I had been born in Germany, which I'm very much glad I was not, I'd have opted for a career with this unit. Outdoors. . . animals, etc. By the same token, if I had been born French, there's the Chasseurs Alpins.
Hmmm. . .
Well, I didn't opt for a career with the Wyoming Game & Fish, so I'm probably just fooling myself.
Have a nice day at work.
Mehr Mensch sein,
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Lex Anteinternet: Work with meaning and the meaning of work.
Lex Anteinternet: Work with meaning and the meaning of work.:
Work with meaning and the meaning of work.
You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.
Blondie, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
I have a theory that certain work is existential by nature. My post on that from several months ago:
Why do I note this?
Well I've had a bunch of synchronicitous events happen recently that perhaps demand it being noted, assuming that anything must be noted here at all. Because they're all sort of circular, I'll start in one spot and gather the round corral, noting that these recollections are all recent, but not chronological.
I was walking out of the sporting goods store and ran into a law school colleague. For some reason or another, for much of my life, I've always been the youngest person in a group as a rule, even when I really shouldn't have been. Anyhow, this fellow, like two other of my law school friends, was an older law student, in law school, although I'm not sure how old he really was then, Two of my other friends, both Vietnam War era veterans, were in their 40s, so they're in their mid 70s now. I think this fellow was probably in his mid to late 30s. He remained remarkably the same looking all that time.
He kind of bounced around at first as a lawyer before landing in a firm where he practiced for maybe 20 years. He's retired now, and has been for awhile. He asked me if I was getting ready to retire, which I indicated I wasn't, but I did ask him about the process, and he gave me some details of how he'd gone about it.
Good to know from somebody who has done it.
He doesn't miss practicing at all.
In contrast to this, a close friend of mine, well really a relative, who is a lawyer who must be crowding 70 told me the other day he's not going to. He'd miss the collegiality of being a lawyer.
That answer shocked me. Not that he wasn't going to retire, but the collegiality.
Eh?
It may be just me, but only a handful of my friends are lawyers. I do have some lawyer friends. But most of my friends aren't lawyers and never have been. I wouldn't miss most lawyers whatsoever. Indeed, I miss a lot of my genuinely close friends due to the practice of law.
This, frankly, is probably an exception to the rule. Law is a unique profession, litigation with in the law even more so, and by and large the onliy people who have a grasp on what it is like are other lawyers. It is, I suppose, kind of like being a combat veteran that way. Lawyers hang out with other lawyers as they're lawyers.
Indeed, being heavily introverted, I've often noted how much lawyers enjoy professional gatherings. They really do. There are organizations that we're all part of and we'll go to a conference and there will be a big dinner or something, everyone goes.
Unless my spouse is with me, or one of the few lawyers I really know well and like, I tend to avoid those gatherings.
Anyhow this takes me to a second point.
I know a couple of lawyers who have lost their souls.
I don't mean in a metaphysical sense. That is, I'm not saying they're condemned to Hell. What I'm saying is that their personalities are gone and been absorbed by false ones in the pursuit of nothing more than money.
It happens to people. It's not a pleasant thing to see.
I was never friends with either of the ones I have in mind. Interestingly, however, one seems to be trying to emerge. One, who sank into this a long time ago actually started talking to me the other day about what he was going to do "next", something he's never said before.
A really good lawyer friend of mine is mostly retired. Like the fellow I mentioned above, while he had his doubts, he hasn't missed the practice at all.
Another good lawyer friend of mine, a woman, is trying to transition from one practice to another.
Two women I know otherwise recently lost their jobs. They weren't lawyers.
I note that as I think women in particular are subject to the Capitalist lie that careers are existentially defining, a completely modern notion.
St Paul was a tent maker. St. Peter a fisherman. I don't know if there are any classic Medieval or Renaissance paintings of St. Paul making a tent, but there should be.
Why do I note that?
Well, for this reason. You don't think much about St. Paul being a tent maker as his occupation didn't define him. His sainthood did.
But a lot of us moderns sure have made our occupations define us. And women are very much doing so now.
This takes me back to the item I linked in above.
That's more than I really need for my point here, but it ties in, this way.
Most careers are just jobs. They're an industrial way of separating you from your homes to make money for somebody else, in exchange for which you make some money too. This was done to men first, and then with the "women's liberation" movement of the 1960s, women drank the KookAide and have been wondering when the good feels will arrive.
They won't.
Most jobs have no greater existential meaning than that. If you define yourself by them, you are defining yourself as a fiction.
Which is why I worry about the lawyers who collapse into the cartoonish litigation personality. It makes you a cartoon, and not a very interesting one.
It's also why lawyers who become deep dive into the Whaling For Justice personality, or something like it, sort of boil off the people they were and become somebody nobody is interested in.
And I also think that's why old lawyers have a hard time retiring. After selling your life away, is this it? It must be. This must be it. I must love this as otherwise. . . .
I will note, and strongly, that I'm not advocating here for something that seems to be a current rage. Don't get any post high school education and hope for the best.
Indeed, the advocates of that, don't mean that. They mean don't forget to look at occupations where you work with your hands.
Now listen to me, all of you. You are all condemned men. We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well, and live.
Quintus Arrius, Ben Hur.
The truth of the matter is that we sell our lives for a living, but we shouldn't sell our souls. A lot of career propaganda emphasis the nifty life you are supposed to have, but not the risk of losing your soul, and here I mean in both senses. Being able to sell the minutes of your life away for a decent return means that you need to have skills of some sort that are valuable. People should try to acquire those if for nothing else their own protection.
Women, I'd note, are particularly vulnerable here. A woman with a professional degree, such as law, is armed against loss of employer. A woman who doesn't have some sort of valuable skill is at the mercy of her employer. They're the ones who lose their jobs readily, and who are subject to all sorts of risks.
The trick, I guess, is to get those skills and remember that we shouldn't lose who we are.
One group of people who tend to make that career choice are people who work for the government. They're often grossly underpaid, but they also tend to have weighted the options and elected towards "quality of life". Lawyers who work for the AG's office, or biologists who work for state and Federal agencies provide such examples.
Interestingly, people on the outside in the same fields tend to hold these people in contempt. I guess people working 80 hours a week to make a go of it are naturally resentful towards those who do not. But those people are often very dedicated to their professions and even more purist than those who sell their labor in the private market. A dear cousin of mine who recently died was one such example. She was a research biologist at a university.
We're about to head into a Federal administration here that seems to contain a contempt to government employees. Indeed one recent campaign featured somebody who wants to limit the amount of time you can work for the Federal government. The same campaign repeatedly noted the candidates rural roots.
The rural roots are real, but what an irony. Descending from homesteaders means that you descent from the biggest American welfare program ever, one that used the U.S. Army to violently expel land occupants due to their race, to hand it out to European Americans. Don't mistake my point, I love agriculture and regard it as an existential occupation, and if I'd been alive when you could have homesteaded, I would have. But people who loved the land so much they fought for it, and lost, had the moral high ground on that, and those who came in behind them benefitted from the Federal largess and murder.
If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?
Tuco, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Genesis tells us that since we sinned in the Garden, we've condemned ourselves to work. But it's also obvious that work was always part of the plan. It's interesting how well this comports to how evolution and societal development worked. We were likely a very happy group as aboriginals, and we know now that depression and modern angst is unknown in hunter gatherer societies. But we ate from the tree of knowledge and acquired it,
Well, now we have to work. Make the best of it.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Lex Anteinternet: A conversation with an old friend. The Good Death, and the Good Life and Existential Occupations.
Lex Anteinternet: A conversation with an old friend. The Good Death...:
A conversation with an old friend. The Good Death, and the Good Life and Existential Occupations.
A really old friend of mine and I were talking about it just last week.
I had to catch up with him as he was working on something for me. It was Friday, but I was fairly formally dressed and he noted it. The reason was that I had just come from my uncle's funeral earlier that day. He extended his sympathies, but I noted that my uncle had lived a long and good life. Not a life free of troubles, as no such thing existed, but a long life, that was well lived, and he'd remained sharp right up until the end. His health had declined in recent years, but only in very recent ones. It was the last few months that were rough.
My friend and I, who first knew each other as National Guardsmen back in the 80s, are co-religious. Neither of us was married when we first met, but both of us have, and have seen our kids grow up since then. And of course, we've seen our parents pass away, his before mine. He has siblings, which I do not, and one of his brothers died, only in his 50s. I noted that in the Middle Ages, people often prayed for good deaths, and he noted that a prayer group that he's in now does that every week.
Prayer for a Happy Death
O God, great and omnipotent judge of the living and the dead, we are to appear before you after this short life to render an account of our works. Give us the grace to prepare for our last hour by a devout and holy life, and protect us against a sudden and unprovided death. Let us remember our frailty and mortality, that we may always live in the ways of your commandments. Teach us to "watch and pray" (Lk 21:36), that when your summons comes for our departure from this world, we may go forth to meet you, experience a merciful judgment, and rejoice in everlasting happiness. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
I'm constantly amazed by people who work into old age, as I'd judge it, and keeping working. A dear friend of mine, now in his 70s, noted that just the other day. He doesn't have to, he just is. Likewise, I know a collection of lawyers who fit that description. The law is a hard job, surrounded by hard facts, hard people, and difficult scenarios
I think they just know nothing else, their real personalities, perhaps, burnt to the core eons ago.
In contrast, I'm also constantly amazed by those who have extensive plans for their retirements well before they can retire. Another friend of mine fits this category, but when I look at him, I can tell his physical condition is so poor it'd be amazing if he lives long enough to retire. It's one of those things where you don't know what to say. If you were to be blunt, you'd say that the dreams of early retirement are probably forlorn, but that his dreams of retiring at all may be foreclosed by a bad early death, if some correction isn't made soon, and those corrections are harder to make once you are past your 30s.
The call came to my wife on Saturday. I could tell from the tone what the topic was, without even being told. A relative of hers was on his way to the hospital by helicopter. Even though he was being sent in, in that fashion, I knew, but did not say it, that he'd not make it. I'm not even sure if he wanted to.
And so another death.
In this case, unlike my uncle, he was much younger. My age, in fact. I hadn't seen him for many years, and before his troubles really set in. He hadn't been able to adjust to them well. The most common comment from people, none of whom were surprised, was that his torment was over.
I don't have any big plans, like one of my friends, for retirement. I hope to be healthy, and just become more of an agrarian-killetarian than I presently am. Funny thing is that recently I've been running into people who claim "you're looking really good". Somebody asked me the other day, indeed at the funeral gathering, "you're working out", the question in the form of a statement. Not really.
Indeed, I've gained some weight I seemingly just can't lose, which I think is the byproduct of my thyroid medicine, which has made me hungry, and I know that I'm not in the physical condition I was before my recent health troubles commenced. People close to me just won't accept that, which brings me to the other side of the retirement coin noted above. Some lawyers I know are already planning for me to work into my 70s, as that's the thing to do, apparently. Long-suffering spouse, for her part, won't say something like that, but from an ag family, she doesn't really accept the concept of retirement anyhow. Having said that, I wouldn't plan on my retiring from the ag operation either.
It finally occured to me, however, what's different about agricultural jobs as opposed to others, at least if you are an owner of the enterprise or part of it. The occupation itself is existentially human. It is, if you will, an Existential Occupation, or at least it is right now. The mindless gerbil like advance of "progress" may ruin that and reduce it to just another occupation.
Existential Occupations are ones that run with our DNA as a species. Being a farmer/herdsman is almost as deep in us as being a hunter or fisherman, and it stems from the same root in our being. It's that reason, really, that people who no longer have to go to the field and stream for protein, still do, and it's the reason that people who can buy frozen Brussels sprouts at Riddleys' still grown them on their lots. And its the reason that people who have never been around livestock will feel, after they get a small lot, that they need a cow, a goat, or chickens. It's in us. That's why people don't retire from real agriculture.
It's not the only occupation of that type, we might note. Clerics are in that category. Storytellers and Historians are as well. We've worshiped the Devine since our onset as a species, and we've told stories and kept our history as story the entire time. They're all existential in nature. Those who build certain things probably fit into that category as well, as we've always done that. The fact that people tinker with machinery as a hobby would suggest that it's like that as well.
Indeed, if it's an occupation. . . and also a hobby, that's a good clue that its an Existential Occupation.
If I were to retire from my career, which I can't right now, I wouldn't be one of those people who spend their time traveling to Rome or Paris or wherever. I have very low interest in doing that. I'd spend my time writing, fishing, hunting, gardening (and livestock tending). That probably sounds pretty dull to most people. I could imagine myself checking our Iceland or Ireland, or fjords in Norway, but I likely never will.
What I can't imagine myself doing is imagining that age and decline don't occur, and that I should be in court in my 70s. I don't think that the lawyers who do that realize that younger lawyers don't admire that, and most of the lawyers I'm running into in court are younger than me now.
And indeed, frankly, it isn't admirable. People who work a hard non-existential job and keep at it into their advanced old age, or at least past their 7th decade, have just lost something they were when they were young, and much of that is themselves. They've lost who they were.
AN ACT OF FAITH IN ANTICIPATION OF THE HOUR OF DEATH
From the works of St. Pompilio M. Pirrotti
On my journey toward eternity, dear Lord,
I am surrounded by powerful enemies of my soul.
I live in fear and trembling,
especially at the thought of the hour of death,
on which my eternity will depend,
and of the fearful struggle that the devil will then have to wage against me,
knowing that little time is left for him to accomplish my eternal ruin.
I desire, therefore, O Lord,
to prepare myself for it from this hour,
by offering you now, in view of my last hour,
my profession of faith and love for you,
which is so effectual in repressing and rendering useless
all the crafty and wicked schemes of the enemy
and which I resolve to oppose to him at that moment of such grave consequence,
even though he should dare alone to attack with his deceits
the peace and tranquility of my spirit.
I N.N.,
in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity,
the blessed Virgin Mary,
my holy Guardian Angel
and the entire heavenly host,
affirm that I wish to live and die under the standard of the Holy Cross.
I firmly believe all that our Holy Mother,
the holy, catholic and apostolic Church,
believes and teaches.
It is my steadfast intention to die in this holy faith,
in which all the holy martyrs, confessors and virgins of Christ have died,
as well as all those who have saved their souls.
If the devil should tempt me to despair
because of the multitude and grievousness of my sins,
I affirm that from this day forth
I firmly hope in the infinite mercy of God,
which will not let itself be overcome by my sins,
and in the Precious Blood of Jesus
which has washed all my sins away.
If the devil should assail me with temptations to presumption
by reason of the small amount of good
which by the help of God
I may have been able to accomplish,
I confess from this day forth
that I deserve eternal separation from God
a thousand times by my sins
and I entrust myself entirely
to the infinite goodness of God,
through whose grace alone I am what I am.
Finally, if the evil spirit should suggest to me
that the pains inflicted upon me by our Lord
in that last hour of my life
are too heavy to bear,
I affirm now that all will be as nothing
in comparison with the punishments I have deserved throughout life.
In the bitterness of my soul
I call to remembrance all my years;
I see my iniquities, I confess them and detest them.
Ashamed and sorrowful I turn to you,
my God, my Creator and my Redeemer.
Forgive me, O Lord, by the multitude of your mercies;
forgive your servant whom you have redeemed by your Precious Blood.
My God, I turn to you, I call upon you, I trust in you;
to your infinite goodness
I commit the entire reckoning of my life.
I have sinned greatly, O Lord:
enter not into judgment with your servant,
who surrenders to you
and confesses his guilt.
Of myself I cannot make satisfaction to you for my countless sins:
I do not have the means to pay you for my infinite debt.
But your Son has shed his Blood for me,
and greater than all mine sins is your mercy.
O Jesus, be my Saviour!
At the hour of my fearful crossing to eternity
put to flight the enemy of my soul;
grant me grace to overcome every difficulty,
for you alone do mighty wonders.
Lord,
according to the multitude of your tender mercies
I shall enter into your dwelling place.
Trusting in your pity,
I commend my spirit into your hands!
May the Blessed Virgin Mary
and my Guardian Angel
accompany my soul into the heavenly country. Amen.
We should all hope and indeed pray for a happy death. And perhaps we should pray for a happy life, which is one worthwhile. That doesn't, quite frankly, include the "I'm going to work here at my desk until I die". That's surrendering to fear or meaningless, in most cases.
Again, there are exceptions. People with Existential Occupations, people who own their own special business, and the like. The list can't really be set out in full.
That doesn't include pouring through the latest edition of the IRS code for deductions, or reading the Restatement (Second) of Torts, or engineering an oilfield implement.
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Lex Anteinternet: Mid Week At Work: Endings.
Lex Anteinternet: Mid Week At Work: Endings.:
On a somewhat contrary note, I was in something this week when a 70-year-old man indicated he might retire in order to take a job as a commercial airline pilot.
Mid Week At Work: Endings.
I posted this the other day:
Sigh . . .
And depicted with a horse too. . .
Kroger retires after 35 years of service
CODY - Worland Wildlife Biologist Bart Kroger retired last month, bringing his 35-year career with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to a close.
“Bart has been referred to as the ‘core of the agency’, meaning through his dedication and continuous hard work, he has significantly and meaningfully impacted wildlife management within his district and throughout the state,” said Corey Class, Cody region wildlife management coordinator. “Throughout his career, he has been a solid, steady and dependable wildlife biologist, providing a foundation for wildlife conservation and management in the Bighorn Basin.”
Through his quiet and thoughtful approach, Bart has gained the respect of both his peers and the public. Bart is best known for his commitment to spending time in the field gaining first-hand knowledge of the wildlife and the habitat that supports them, as well as the people he serves in his district.
Found this old draft the other day
RETIREMENT ELIGIBILITY
Vesting Requirements
After obtaining 72 months of service, you are eligible to elect a monthly benefit at
retirement age. The 72 months of service do not have to be consecutive months.
Retirement Eligibility
You are eligible for retirement when you reach age 50 and are vested. There is no
early retirement under this plan. You must begin drawing your benefit no later than
age 65.
Which means, as a practical matter, if you are to draw retirement as a Wyoming Game Warden, you need to take the job no later than the beginning of your 59th year.
Of course, if you started at age 59, you wouldn't be drawing much, if anything.
That doesn't mean, of course, that you couldn't be hired after age 59. You'd just draw no retirement.
The actual statute on this matter states the following, as we noted in a prior thread, from 2023, quoted below:
Statutorily, the current law provides:
This differs, I'd note, significantly from the Federal Government. The cutoff there is age 37. That's it.
Have a wildlife management degree? Spend the last few years in some other state agency? Win the Congressional Medal of Honor for single handled defeating the Boko Haram? 38 years old now? Well, too bloody bad for you.
Anyhow, I guess this says something about the American concept that age is just a number and the hands of the clock don't really move.
They do.
On a somewhat contrary note, I was in something this week when a 70-year-old man indicated he might retire in order to take a job as a commercial airline pilot.
He's never been employed in that capacity, but he's had the license for 50 years. It wouldn't be carrying people for United or something, but in some other commercial capacity.
He's always wanted to do it, and has an offer.
Well, more power to him.
I did a lot of what this lawyer is doing here, when first practicing, in front of barrister cases just like this. No young lawyer does that now.
I spoke to a lawyer I've known the entire time I've been practicing law, almost. He's four years younger than me, which would make him 56 or so. He's worked his entire career in general civil, in a small and often distressed town, in a firm founded by his parents. When I was first practicing, it was pretty vibrant.
Now he's the only one left.
He's retiring this spring. This was motivated by his single employee's decision to retire.
I was really surprised, in part due to his age. I'm glad that he can retire, but it was a bit depressing. We're witnessing, in Wyoming, the death of the small town civil firm. Everything is gravitating to the larger cities, and frankly in the larger cities, they're in competition with the big cities in Colorado and Utah. That's insured a bill in the legislature to try to recruit lawyers to rural areas.*
It's not going to work.
The problem has been, for some time, that it's impossible to recruit young lawyers to small rural areas. The economics don't allow for it. The economics don't allow for it, in part, as the Wyoming Supreme Court forced the Uniform Bar Exam down on the Board of Law Examiners, and that resulted in opening the doors to Denver and Salt Lake lawyers. It's been something the small firms have been competing against ever since.
And not only that, but some sort of demographic change has operated to just keep younger lawyers out of smaller places, and frankly to cause them to opt for easier paths than civil law in general. I know older lawyers that came from the larger cities in the state, and set up small town practices when they were young, as that's where the jobs were and having a job was what they needed to have. I've even known lawyers who went to UW who moved here from somewhere else who took that path, relocating from big Eastern or Midwestern cities to do so.
No longer. Younger lawyers don't do that.
Quite a few don't stick with civil practice at all. They leave for government work, where the work hours are regular, and the paycheck isn't dependent on billable hours. And recently, though we are not supposed to note it, young women attorneys reflect a new outlook in which a lot of them bail out of practice or greatly reduce their work hours after just a few years in, a desire to have a more regular domestic life being part of that.
I guess people can't be blamed for that, but we can, as a state, be blamed for being shortsighted. Adopting the UBE was shortsighted. Sticking with it has been inexcusable. I'm not the only one who has said so, and frankly not the only one who probably paid a price for doing so. The reaction to voices crying in the wilderness is often to close the windows so you don't have to hear them. Rumor had it, which I've never seen verified and have heard expressly denied by a person within the law school administration, that it was done in order to aid the law school, under the theory that it would make UW law degrees transportable, which had pretty much the practical effect on the local law as Commodore Matthew Perry opening up trade with Japan.
Wyoming Board of Law Examiners bringing in the UBE.
The lawyer in this case is worried, as he has no hobbies and doesn't know what he'll do with himself. I'm surprised how often this concern is expressed. To only have the law, or any work, is sad. But a court reporter, about my age, expressed the same concern to me the other day.
Court reporting has really taken a beating in this state, more so than lawyers. When I was first practicing, every community had court reporters. Now there are hardly any left at all. Huge firms are down to just a handful of people, and people just aren't coming into the occupation. It's a real concern to lawyers.
It's always looked like an interesting job to me, having all the diversity of being a lawyer, with seemingly a lot less stress. But having never done it, perhaps I'm wildly in error. We really don't know what other people's jobs are like unless we've done them.
A lawyer I know just died by his own hand.
I met him when he took over for a very long time Wyoming trial attorney upon that attorney's death.
The attorney he took over for had died when he went in his backyard and put a rifle bullet through his brain. He was a well known attorney, and we could tell something wasn't quite right with him. Just the day prior, he called me and asked for an extension on something. I'd already given two. I paused, and then, against my better judgment, said, "well. . . okay".
I'd known him too long to say no.
He was clearing his schedule. If I had said no, I feel, he wouldn't have done it, and he'd be alive today.
The new attorney came in and was sort of like a goofy force of nature. Hard to describe. A huge man, probably in his 40s at the time, but very childlike. He talked and talked. Depositions would be extended due to long meandering conversational interjections, as I learned in that case and then a very serious subsequent one.
He was hugely proud of having been a member of a legendary local plaintiff's firm. That didn't really matter much to me then, and it still doesn't. My family has always had an odd reaction to the supposedly honorific. My father never bothered to collect his National Defense Service Medal for serving during the Korean War, I didn't bother to get my Reserve Overseas Training Ribbon, or my South Korean award for Operation Team Spirit, I don't have my law school diploma's anymore. . . It's not that they aren't honors, it's just, well, oh well. We tend to value other things, which in some ways sets standards that are highers than others, and very difficult to personally meet.
Anyhow, the guy was very friendly and told me details of his life, not all of which were true. He was raised by his grandmother, his grandmother had somehow encouraged him to go to law school, Both true.
He was from Utah and grown up there, but consistently denied being a Mormon. His wife was Mormon, he said. He was an Episcopalian. As I'm very reserved, I'm not really going to talk religion with somebody I only casually and professionally know, as opposed to one of my very extroverted and devout partners who will bring it up at the drop of a hat, and his religious confession didn't particularly matter to me, given the light nature of our relationship. As it turns out, and as I suspected, that wasn't even remotely true. He was and always had been a Mormon. Why did he lie about that? No idea.
I suppose this is some sort of warning here, maybe.
The first lawyer noted in this part of this entry had suffered something hugely traumatic early in his life and never really got over it. Some people roll with the punches on traumas and some do not. We hear about combat veterans all the time who live with the horrors they experienced, and which break them down, all the time, but I've known a couple who didn't have that sort of reaction at all, and who could coolly relate their combat experiences. Others can't get over something that happened to them, ever.
With the second lawyers, there were some oddities, one being that he jumped from firm to firm, and to solo, and back and forth, all the time. That's unusual. Another was that he seemed to have pinned his whole identify on being a lawyer. It's one thing, like the retiring fellow above, to have worked it your whole life and have nothing else to do, it's quite another to have that make up everything you are. He'd drunk deeply of the plaintiff's lawyer propaganda about helping the little guy and all that crap, and didn't really realize that litigators often hurt people as often as they help them, or do both at the same time. Maybe the veil had come off. Maybe he should never have been a lawyer in the first place. Maybe it was organic and had nothing to do with any of this.
Well, the moral of this story, or morals, if there are any, would be this. You don't have endless time to do anything, 70-year-old commercial airline pilots aside. You probably don't know what it's like to do something unless you've actually done it, but you can investigate it and learn as much as possible. The UBE, which the Wyoming Supreme Court was complicit in adopting, is killing the small town civil lawyer and only abrogating it, or its successor, and restoring the prior system can address that. The entire whaling for justice plaintiff's lawyer ethos is pretty much crap. And, finally, you had some sort of identify before you took up your occupation. Unless that identity was what you became, before you became it, don't let the occupation become it. It may be shallower than you think.
Footnotes:
The bill:
SENATE FILE NO. SF0033
Wyoming rural attorney recruitment program.
Sponsored by: Joint Judiciary Interim Committee
A BILL
for
AN ACT relating to attorneys-at-law; establishing the rural attorney recruitment pilot program; specifying eligibility requirements for counties and attorneys to participate in the program; specifying administration, oversight and payment obligations for the program; requiring reports; providing a sunset date for the program; authorizing the adoption of rules, policies and procedures; providing an appropriation; and providing for an effective date.
Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
Section 1. W.S. 33‑5‑201 through 33‑5‑203 are created to read:
ARTICLE 2
RURAL ATTORNEY RECRUITMENT PROGRAM
33‑5‑201. Rural attorney recruitment program established; findings; program requirements; county qualifications; annual reports.
(a) In light of the shortage of attorneys practicing law in rural Wyoming counties, the legislature finds that the establishment of a rural attorney recruitment program constitutes a valid public purpose, of primary benefit to the citizens of the state of Wyoming.
(b) The Wyoming state bar may establish a rural attorney recruitment program to assist rural Wyoming counties in recruiting attorneys to practice law in those counties.
(c) Each county eligible under this subsection may apply to the Wyoming state bar to participate in the program. A county is eligible to participate in the program if the county:
(i) Has a population of not greater than twenty‑five thousand (25,000);
(ii) Has an average of not greater than one and one‑half (1.5) qualified attorneys in the county for every one thousand (1,000) residents. As used in this paragraph, "qualified attorney" means an attorney who provides legal services to private citizens on a fee basis for an average of not less than twenty (20) hours per week. "Qualified attorney" shall not include an attorney who is a full‑time judge, prosecutor, public defender, judicial clerk, in‑house counsel, trust officer and any licensed attorney who is in retired status or who is not engaged in the practice of law;
(iii) Agrees to provide the county share of the incentive payment required under this article;
(iv) Is determined to be eligible to participate in the program by the Wyoming state bar.
(d) Before determining a county's eligibility, the Wyoming state bar shall conduct an assessment to evaluate the county's need for an attorney and the county's ability to sustain and support an attorney. The Wyoming state bar shall maintain a list of counties that have been assessed and are eligible to participate in the program under this article. The Wyoming state bar may revise any county assessment or conduct a new assessment as the Wyoming State bar deems necessary to reflect any change in a county's eligibility.
(e) In selecting eligible counties to participate in the program, the Wyoming state bar shall consider:
(i) The county's demographics;
(ii) The number of attorneys in the county and the number of attorneys projected to be practicing in the county over the next five (5) years;
(iii) Any recommendations from the district judges and circuit judges of the county;
(iv) The county's economic development programs;
(v) The county's geographical location relative to other counties participating in the program;
(vi) An evaluation of any attorney or applicant for admission to the state bar seeking to practice in the county as a program participant, including the attorney's or applicant's previous or existing ties to the county;
(vii) Any prior participation of the county in the program;
(viii) Any other factor that the Wyoming state bar deems necessary.
(f) A participating eligible county may enter into agreements to assist the county in meeting the county's obligations for participating in the program.
(g) Not later than October 1, 2024 and each October 1 thereafter that the program is in effect, the Wyoming state bar shall submit an annual report to the joint judiciary interim committee on the activities of the program. Each report shall include information on the number of attorneys and counties participating in the program, the amount of incentive payments made to attorneys under the program, the general status of the program and any recommendations for continuing, modifying or ending the program.
33‑5‑202. Rural attorney recruitment program; attorney requirements; incentive payments; termination of program.
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, any attorney licensed to practice law in Wyoming or an applicant for admission to the Wyoming state bar may apply to the Wyoming state bar to participate in the rural attorney recruitment program established under this article. No attorney or applicant shall participate in the program if the attorney or applicant has previously participated in the program or has previously participated in any other state or federal scholarship, loan repayment or tuition reimbursement program that obligated the attorney to provide legal services in an underserved area.
(b) Not more than five (5) attorneys shall participate in the program established under this article at any one (1) time.
(c) Subject to available funding and as consideration for providing legal services in an eligible county, each attorney approved by the Wyoming state bar to participate in the program shall be entitled to receive an incentive payment in five (5) equal annual installments. Each annual incentive payment shall be paid on or after July 1 of each year. Each annual incentive payment shall be in an amount equal to ninety percent (90%) of the University of Wyoming college of law resident tuition for thirty (30) credit hours and annual fees as of July 1, 2024.
(d) Subject to available funding, the supreme court shall make each incentive payment to the participating attorney. The Wyoming state bar and each participating county shall remit its share of the incentive payment to the supreme court in a manner and by a date specified by the supreme court. The Wyoming state bar shall certify to the supreme court that a participating attorney has completed all annual program requirements and that the participating attorney is entitled to the incentive payment for the applicable year. The responsibility for incentive payments under this section shall be as follows:
(i) Fifty percent (50%) of the incentive payments shall be from funds appropriated to the supreme court;
(ii) Thirty‑five percent (35%) of the incentive payments shall be provided by each county paying for attorneys participating in the program in the county;
(iii) Fifteen percent (15%) of the incentive payments shall be provided by the Wyoming state bar from nonstate funds.
(e) Subject to available funding for the program, each attorney participating in the program shall enter into an agreement with the supreme court, the participating county and the Wyoming state bar that obligates the attorney to practice law full‑time in the participating county for not less than five (5) years. As part of the agreement required under this subsection, each participating attorney shall agree to reside in the participating county for the period in which the attorney practices law in the participating county under the program. No agreement shall be effective until it is filed with and approved by the Wyoming state bar.
(f) Any attorney who receives an incentive payment under this article and subsequently breaches the agreement entered into under subsection (e) of this section shall repay all funds received under this article pursuant to terms and conditions established by the supreme court. Failure to repay funds as required by this subsection shall subject the attorney to license suspension.
(g) The Wyoming state bar may promulgate any policies or procedures necessary to implement this article. The supreme court may promulgate any rules necessary to implement this article.
(h) The program established under this article shall cease on June 30, 2029, provided that attorneys participating in the program as of June 30, 2029 shall complete their obligation and receive payments as authorized by this article.
33‑5‑203. Sunset.
(a) W.S. 33‑5‑201 and 33‑5‑202 are repealed effective July 1, 2029.
(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, attorneys participating in the rural attorney pilot program authorized in W.S. 33‑5‑201 and 33‑5‑202 shall complete the requirements of the program and shall be entitled to the authorized payments in accordance with W.S. 33‑5‑201 and 33‑5‑202 as provided on June 30, 2029.
Section 2. There is appropriated one hundred ninety‑seven thousand three hundred seventy‑five dollars ($197,375.00) from the general fund to the supreme court for the period beginning with the effective date of this act and ending June 30, 2029 to be expended only for purposes of providing incentive payments for the rural attorney recruitment program established under this act. This appropriation shall not be transferred or expended for any other purpose. Notwithstanding W.S. 9‑2‑1008, 9‑2‑1012(e) and 9‑4‑207, this appropriation shall not revert until June 30, 2029.
Section 3. This act is effective July 1, 2024.
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