The Adventures of Chris

A lot has changed since the last post.  Back then, I hated my job, I’d never been to Costa Rica and I spent almost all of my time outside of work sitting at a desk.

All that has changed.

As my last post made fairly clear, the early part of February 2010 was a horrible time.  At the end of November, I’d made the leap from my first law firm and landed at a new one down the road (the “road” being the 405).    Having worked at the law firm equivalent of a car being driven by a drunk driver, I was hesitant to move somewhere else unless it could provide me with a more stable environment.  My hesitance was lessened by the recommendation of a co-worker from the first firm, so I decided to make the leap, thinking that this firm would provide me the stability that the first firm lacked.

I was wrong.

It took me only a few minutes to realize that I’d simply hopped into another doomed car.  I’d traded a socially and emotionally impaired principal for one whose impairment was much simpler - he didn’t care about anyone.   After two months of work, a very awkward Christmas party where one of the attorneys was unceremoniously fired hours before the party began and many moments of abject terror, I’d had enough.

I had to do something.

Let me say that I hope that this is the worst time for the legal labor market in my lifetime.  There’s a seismic shift going on, where the scarcity of jobs and overeagerness of law schools has created an oversupply of newly minted, heavily indebted attorneys whose desperation comes across in the form of thousands of resumes sent in response to any job posting by “legal” in the subject or the body of a job posting.  This even includes situations where the word “legal” is preceded with the word “borderline.”  Still, knowing that the legal market was in such disarray, I figured I had had enough.

I had to quit.
Instead, I ended up accepting a transfer to a different office, with two and a half week break, during which I packed up my apartment, played a little golf, tried a few restaurants, and went to Costa Rica.

Now my life is pretty different.  I’m working in the bay area, kind of.  95% of my belongings are at my parents’ house and the other 5% is crammed into a corner in Susan’s room.   I wake up at 630am every day to catch two trains to work.  I work in an office where people are known to smile and say good morning.  There is a nameplate on my office door; it’s not some nameless door of an office that can claim 4 different inhabitants per year.

Of course, life isn’t perfect.  My commute is killer.  I’m pretty tired.  The shirts I wear to work are smashed into accordion-type patterns.   I don’t know where we’ll live next.  When I come home, I work on the floor, not at a desk.  My lower back isn’t happy about it, but it’s probably the only part of me that isn’t thrilled about the progress made in the last months and a half.
Now, life’s pretty good.

Contrary to what most asian parents think, the worst thing that a child can tell his parents about his future isn’t that he wants to be an actor or writer.  The worst thing that a child can tell his parents about his future is that he wants to be a lawyer.

Highlights of life as a civil litigator:

- No one, and I mean no one, likes you.  Plaintiff clients don’t like you because they had to hire you and pay you to get something they feel is rightfully theirs anyway.  Defendant clients hate you because they had to hire you out of self-preservation.  Neither is good.  All clients don’t like you because you charge rates that seem way too high, especially in light of the fact that they hate their situation and they hate you.  Your opponents hate you for obvious reasons.  Judges hate you because you contribute to their impossibly huge backlog of cases.  I used to think that dentists had it tough because none of their patients really wants to see them.  But they actually have it fairly good.

- Most “good” litigators are assholes, and if they’re not assholes, they’re extremely arrogant, overly self-absorbed and overly confrontational.  They have to be.  They’re nothing more than hired guns who are hired to achieve their clients’ objective.  And the profession rewards all of these character traits.  Anyone without any of these traits is doomed in this profession.  And anyone who has any of these traits will realize that the profession magnifies them.

- The profession actually dissuades efficiency.  Think about it, lawyers are paid by the hour.  No clients understand what work is necessary or not to achieve their objective, so they can’t second-guess work that is done. Nor can they second-guess the status of their cases, for the same reasons.   Finally, there’s no way for a client to tell whether an hour was spent efficiently or not.  It’s the dumbest idea in the history of paid labor.

- Managing attorneys have no incentive to treat lower-level attorneys as anything but machines.  There doesn’t need to be any humanity in this profession.  A law firm makes money by paying their attorneys a small percentage of the hourly rate that they charge clients.  In other words, they pay a wholesale price for work that they turn around and sell at retail prices.  This profit margin is all that matters for a firm.  There’s no distinction between a disgruntled attorney’s hour of work versus a happy attorney’s hour of work.  If an attorney wants to go to his kid’s soccer game, it’s just one hour less of profit for the firm.  It really is that cold.  If a managing attorney treats junior attorneys as anything more than machines it’s out of the goodness of his heart.  An hour is an hour is an hour.

- It’s one of the most elitist, segregated professions.

- Most lawyers don’t get paid that well for the work that they have to put in.  For any nonlawyer, I challenge them to take the hours at their jobs that they actually do work (no time spent socializing, eating lunch, going to the bathroom, surfing the net, etc.) and then take their annual salary and divide it by the number of hours.  Then ask a lawyer to take his salary and divide it by the number of billable hours he puts in.  You’d be surprised.

- Litigation isn’t about justice.  It’s most often about who has more money.  There’s rarely satisfaction in that.

- You do nothing but push paper.  There’s rarely a sense of accomplishment.  Being a lawyer made me envy construction workers and ditch diggers.

- In a related note, litigation is really slow.  It can take 1-2 years to get absolutely nowhere.   Then 1-2 more to think that you’re getting somewhere.  Then another year to realize you didn’t get anywhere.

- The cost of law school tuition will put most lawyers in debt so deep that it’s rarely justified by the salary they make when they get out of school.  This is especially true for schools that are not well-known.

- Most lawyers wear bad suits that are out of date or in bad hues, like olive green, which never looks good on anybody.

I’ve missed a lot of events on this blog and I’ll have to summarize retroactively.  But in a nutshell:

- I went to Hong Kong and Taiwan and felt even more comfortable there than ever before.

- I got a pedicure.

- I can now say for sure that a wedding emcee’s nightmare is a microphone that doesn’t work.

- If you want to make people excited on a dance floor right now, I realized that all you need to do is play the “I’ve Got a Feelin’” by the Black Eyed Peas and then follow it up with “Down” by Jay Sean and Lil’ Wayne.  You can’t miss.
- I changed jobs from one with a lunatic boss…to one with a lunatic boss.  I can’t believe that there are nuances to lunacy.
- If anyone needs to get me a gift and has no clue what to get me, I’ve realized that you cannot miss by buying me a tie from Zara.  I seriously like every tie they sell.
- I’m totally addicted to Fanfarlo right now.  Totally.  I can’t stop listening to them.  This year, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album and Fanfarlo’s album just blew me away. I couldn’t stop listening to them for weeks.  If I went on a desert island right now, I’d grab those two albums, maybe the Phoenix album and the Hockey album and then I’d be set for a while.

Fanfarlo - Finish Line

Life can be tough when you’re a detail-oriented guy.  You see things that other people don’t see.  You’re bothered by things that most people never notice.  You spend time on details that no one would ever think of spending time on. 

Last month, I embarked on a month-long quest to find the perfect dress shirt.  It was a quest filled with ups and downs, frustrations, anxiousness and, ultimately, some gratification.

My main issue with dress shirts is that most are cut too wide for most skinnier people.  There’s just so much overhang under the arms and in the back that normal dress shirts look almost parachute-like on anyone that has less than a squarish build.  Neck and sleeve lengths notwithstanding, dress shirts suffer from same problem that haunts little leaguers and their jerseys and college students and the free t-shirts they get at job fairs: the shirts are cut in a way that fits the most people, yet the cut flatters almost nobody.

For someone detail-oriented, this just doesn’t cut it.  Anyone who thinks this isn’t obvious only needs to pull out a fine menswear advertisement and look closely at all of the good-looking models.  None of them wear parachutes.  Those guys aren’t cool-looking just because they’re attractive or because the craftsmanship of the shirt is better (although these aspects are certainly contributing factors).  In my opinion, the biggest reason that these models look so good is that the clothes fit them properly.  Lost amongst the production and glitz of the ad is the fact that finding any clothing (in this case, dress shirts) that fits properly is a matter of patience and determination more than it is a function of cost.

That being said, I spent the last month trying on almost every sub-$80 dress shirt sold at any reputable store in the area.  Every guy should do something like this.  If you try on a series of shirts, you realize little things because you have a means to compare.  Some shirts are embarrassingly wide; I was swimming in them even though they were the proper neck and sleeve measurements.  Some shirts, on the other hand, were incredibly slim.  I’m not a big guy, but there are some shirts out there that are “heroin-addict/impossibly skinny euroman” slim.  I couldn’t breathe in those.

I ended up not finding a shirt in any store that fit all of my criteria.  Finally, I went on the Internet and, having read the measurements of their ‘slim but not that slim” shirt, I ordered some.  After three weeks, the shirts arrived from the UK.  I’d say it was 90% of what I wanted.  Not bad.

Herea were my criteria, in no particular order:

- Slim fit – meaning the chest buttons had to be on the edge of straining when I inhaled fully, but no more

- Point collar with a width, at the widest point, of 2.5 inches

- Spread collar with an angle between the two collars of roughly 90 degrees, no more or less

- 2^nd button from the neck can’t be within 1 inch of the uppermost button

- Stitching on collar more than 2 millimeters from border of the collar

- In additition to white, manufacturer had to make a very light blue option.  Not royal blue.  Not sky blue.  A very light blue.

Someday, I’d like to get around this problem by having my shirts custom made.  But in the meantime, this is the way that a details freak has to buy dress shirts. There is no other way.

And now you know why Susan is afraid to buy me clothes.

- We celebrated our one year anniversary!  In a display of determination, I picked up our one-year anniversary cake from the bakery (after dealing with their inept workers), drove it home in its non-fitting box, then hand-carried it on my walk to the airport and hand-carried it on the plane to the bay area.  In another display of determination, Susan stayed married to me for a year.  Our anniversary dinner was at the Farmhouse Inn.  It was fancy and good.

- I’m adding Top Chef Masters to the list of things that I totally expected to hate but ended up enjoying immensely.  I thought that removing the purely competitive aspect of the show (I know they’re competing for charity, but still) and changing the judging personnel would be too much to handle, but I was wrong.  I underestimated how much I would enjoy seeing such accomplished professionals at work.  It’s one thing to enjoy seeing 10 novice chefs try to make something using only one hand, but it’s entirely different watching 4 pro chefs make something good using only one hand. The former is a matter of seeing who’s competent and who’s not.  The latter is seeing who can maximize.  And if there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that I love seeing things get maximized.
- July included two trips to Vegas that were completely different from one another.  One trip included nice accomodations, poolside time, fine dining at Robuchon and Charlie Palmer and very little gambling.  The second trip included barebones accomodations, bowling, two nights of buffets (sushi buffet+Bellagio buffet), and a lot of craps table time.  I truly love Vegas.  I can’t say enough about it.
- I just bought the People Magazine issue with the Saved by the Bell cast on the cover.  After seeing Zack Morris’s ingenious appearance on Fallon, I had to get this.  The issue was a little bit of a letdown.  What’s killer is how similar a lot of the cast looks (especially Zack and Slater).  The highlight of the issue for me, which wasn’t even part of the issue, was the comment on Justjared where the person commented on the Screech-less group pic by saying “i miss the ugly boy.”

- I started a Facebook/Linkedin “friend drive” the other day.  The results weren’t inspiring, numbers-wise, but that wasn’t a surprise.  It’s weird if you request someone and the friend request is pending for a long time.  I know the friend might not have seen the request, but it’s almost like they’re wondering if you’re good enough.  And you can’t retract the request, can you?  That’s like saying “oh yeah, I don’t need you anyway.”  I’m saying this while fully aware that most people don’t have this problem.
- I bought some Izze sodas the other day.  I really enjoy them but I’m hesitant to buy more because they’re expensive.  I have realized that beer is more expensive than Izze and, I’d probably enjoy an Izze more often than I’d enjoy a beer, so why not buy more Izze?  They need more high-end non-alcoholic beverages that aren’t energy drinks.  Having flown Southwest business select a few times recently, I’ve refrained from cashing in on my complimentary alcoholic beverage because of what I’ve had to do when I land (like drive a car or do some work).  If they sold some really nice juices or teas, I’d be all over that.
- I’ve been working like crazy this month in preparation for a trial.  I’m not sure if I should be in this line of work because I’m so competitive.  If we succeed, then it’s all good, but right now, I;m being driven by imagining what it will be like to lose - having to turn to the client who just realized his business is over, looking across to see opposing counsel celebrating a victory, knowing that all of your work was for nothing…I might need to retire soon.

Time for a recap/meandering blog entry.

I picked cherries a few weeks ago for the first time.  I think picking fruit is weird because it’s one of those things that is a job (for a day laborer), or a necessity (for a farmer/hunter gatherer) and a recreational activity (for a city-dweller).

Picking cherries isn’t easy.   You want to detach them at the point where the stem is attached to the tree, but since they are clumped together and since the point of attachment between the stem and the cherry is itself fragile, you frequently end up detaching the cherry from the stem and/or losing some collateral cherries.  It’s very frustrating.

I’ve found that I really enjoy looking at pearl champagne and ranier cherries because they seem so bright and colorful.  I don’t like the traditional maroon bing cherries very much.   Btw, I’m not a huge fan of cherries because they’re not that juicy and they all have pits in them.   I tend to gravitate towards fruit experiences that are continuously juicy with minimal interruption.

I also found that picking blackberries is very tedious and very painful.  The berries are low, in thorny thickets (I just wanted to say the word “thickets” but it might not be the right term, technically).  The thorns are just spiky enough to hurt, but not spiky enough to deter you from trying to get a good-looking berry.   Another frustrating aspect of picking is that ripe blackberries are really soft, but they are attached quite strongly to the vine.  This makes twisting very important, but very painful because of the thorns.  Afterwards, your hands are covered in red juice and you’re not sure if it’s berry juice or blood.  I can’t say berry-picking is something I’m eager to try soon.

I saw “Up.”   I don’t really feel the need to watch movies in theaters, or to watch movies at all.  But I always check to see when the Pixar summer flick comes out.   Their movies are always amazing to me, mostly because there are no other movies that do a better job of appealing to me visually, comedically and emotionally.  I’m so blown away by the depths of the characters in these movies and how the storylines always invoke sincere emotions.  With a Pixar movie, I’m guaranteed to laugh at something, but I’m also guaranteed to feel sad about something, or to reflect on a theme and reconsider the way I see it.  Although “Up” wasn’t my favorite Pixar movie (it wasn’t logically illogical*), it delivered on all three things.  To me, the summary of Carl and Ellie’s life was perfection, serving both as an explanation of Carl’s personality and of the crushing realities that life brings.   What’s great about that scene is that I’d get different emotions if I watched it as a child, as a teen, as a young adult, or as a senior citizen.  This scene is now #1 on my list of heartbreaking moments in cartoon movies, usurping the scene from Ice Age where Manfred flashes back to the time when he was forced to watch, helpless, as his wife and kid are attacked by hunters. All men should watch that scene.  If they do not react emotionally to it, they are not men.

*Logically illogical – when a movie fails to sufficiently lay a foundation for key facts, no matter how illogical or unrealistic the explanation or key fact is.

I’ve also become fixated on becoming a better pool player.  To me, pool is one of those things that guys have to be decent at.  They don’t have to be experts, but they have to be able to sink an easy shot.  I’m compiling a list of “man musts,” things that guys should be able to do, no matter what.  So far I have: play pool decently, play basketball decently, catch a football, bowl at least a 100, hold their own in a game of no-limit hold-em, pick a matching outfit on the fly, be able to discuss local sports teams for at least 30 seconds, cook steaks to medium and tell a joke to a girl to make her laugh.   These are musts.  Knowing how to read is also good, but it’s not as important.

This has been, and will probably continue to be, the most difficult NBA playoffs of my memory.  What makes it tough is that my hometown team is going up against a series of teams that all have at least one player that I like.  I can’t remember a time when this was actually true, and, combined with the fact that I don’t actually like the players on the Lakers, it’s making this a very difficult NBA postseason for me.
Let’s start with Yao Ming.  I really like how he’s managed to be a success despite his unorthodox (for the NBA) upbringing.  He’s freakishly tall, he was obviously bred specifically to play basketball (his dad and mom were pro basketballers in China) and he is the first Asian to really be a serious player in the NBA (sorry Wang Zhizhi).  You’d think that this insulated life and his “fish-out-of-water” existence would mean that he would be socially awkward and aloof.  Instead he’s totally likeable, has assimilated himself in the NBA, become a team leader on a team full of African-Americans and actually improved as a player over the course of his career.  I really admire him because I know that I couldn’t have done half as well as that.  I probably couldn’t do half a good a job if I was charged with leading a team of 5th graders.  I felt terrible when Yao broke his foot, even though I knew that virtually guaranteed that the Lakers would beat the Rockets. That shows how much I like him.
Now we’ll talk about Ron Artest.  If there was anything that the 2009 NBA playoffs did, it made me a Ron Artest fan.  Before this year, my opinion of Ron Artest was the same as everyone else’s - I thought Ron Artest was a brainless thug.  But now I think of him as actually a fairly thoughtful guy who simply took longer than usual to realize that playing professional basketball requires specific behavior that wasn’t fostered when he was growing up in a tough neighborhood.  But what I realized is that he’s a genuine person, and that can’t be a bad thing (except when you go into the crowd to fight people).  The icing on the cake for me, what made me a Ron Artest fan for life, was when he gave his heartfelt recounting of the story from his youth, where one of his teammates in a basketball game was stabbed to death (through his heart!) by an opposing player wielding a table leg.  That killed me.  I’m a huge fan Ron Artest fan now.

Now it’s Chauncey Billups.  I actually have grown to like him, despite the fact that he spearheaded the Pistons when they destroyed  the Lakers in the 2004 Finals (still one of the more painful sports moments for me).  There’s nothing not to like about Chauncey Billups.  He’s got good skills, is a great team leader, is super clutch, does tons for his community and he does this all while having the name Chauncey.  That’s almost like a litmus test in life - whether you can be a great success in spite of your outdated name.  He passed the test.
Then, even though the Lakers haven’t made the finals, I’ve got a problem liking both Dwight Howard and Lebron.  Dwight Howard is also another genuinely likeable person who does cool things, like winning dunk contests while wearing Superman capes and putting stickers of his face high on the backboard.
As for Lebron, seriously, what’s not to like?   He is a physically unbelievable player.  He’s so fast and strong that he can make other NBA players defending him look like they’re in elementary school.  The fact that he can embarrass these other gifted players is already crazy.   Then throw in the fact that all of his teammates, themselves all macho members of the macho NBA, adore him and want to kill themselves for him.   Then throw in the fact that he is FROM Ohio and is not only playing for his hometown team, he’s rescuing them from their sorry history (this is so huge and rare, in my opinion).  Then throw in the fact that he’s funny as hell (check out his acting in the Lebrons Nike commercials and his dancing to Kid N Play in the State Farm insurance commercials).  Then throw in the fact that he makes halfcourt shots from a sitting position.  Then throw in the fact that his name is Lebron (what if his name was Michael James, it wouldn’t be as cool right?  Wait a minute, there already IS a generic NBA player named Mike James!) and he nearly changed my stance against first names as last names. Then throw in the fact that he started his own company, hired his friends to run it, and together, they made it a success.   Then throw in the fact that he seems to be a great dad (ok ok, an edited ESPN behind the scenes clip convinced me, but it looked very real).  Lebron has it all.  He’s one of the only athletes that made me wish I lived in an area where I could cheer for him.  Knock on wood, if the Lakers play the Cavs and beat them, I’m going to feel so bad about Lebron losing.  I could never say that about Larry Bird or Chauncey Billups.

As for the Lakers…I’m still cheering for them, but they’re not making it easy.  Kobe’s a great player, but you know he’s a selfish person who really only cares about himself.  You have to check out Kobe’s reaction to Andrew Bynum tearing his MCL during the season.  Kobe falls, lands his teammate’s leg, tears his teammates’s MCL, and then, while his teammate is writhing in pain, Kobe reacts like someone just told him that his car was stolen.  No sign of concern for his teammate.  None.  I tend to think that all superstars in any walk of life are selfish like this, but then the Lebrons of the world make you think otherwise.  The rest of the Lakers are lame too.  Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum are mentally weak.  Derek Fisher is a good guy but he’s too old and can’t make baskets anymore.  Jordan Farmar and Shannon Brown are inconsistent.  Sasha Vujacic has to be considered one of the biggest jokes in all of professional sports for naming himself “the machine.”  Together, they only seem to try hard on defense when they are winning, which, to me, is totally contrary to logic.  It all kills me, and it hurts even more to think that, by winning, they will crush the dreams of teams and individuals who are more likable.

Other than that, Go Lakers!!!

When my boss goes out of town, two things happen at work.  We declare a casual Friday where everyone wears jeans to work.  Then we start bringing in an inordinate amount of junk food, usually doughnuts.  Why casual Friday?  My boss doesn’t like casual clothes, even though there is no reason that we dress nicely because we rarely ever see clients.  There was a longstanding rumor that my boss didn’t own a single pair of jeans, but that was recently debunked when he proudly stated that he had a pair of “Italian jeans.”  My boss thinks anything Italian is the best.  He probably thinks Italian soy sauce is the best soy sauce out there.  It’s stupid.  As for the doughnuts, we bring them in because our boss frowns on junk food.  Why?  Because he is, himself, addicted to junk food.  There is a legendary story of the boss berating someone for bringing in a box of chocolates, and then, later that day, being caught in the copy room stuffing his face with the chocolates.  True story.

What a place to work.

A few days ago, I admitted to co-workers that I’m a huge fan of Beauty and the Beast (the movie) and the soundtrack.  I admitted that I’m such a fan that I even own the soundtrack on CD.  I was ridiculed, with some co-workers even mockingly singing “Be..our..Guest!”

I came home that same evening and listened to the soundtrack.  You’d think the ridicule at work would somehow diminish my enjoyment, even making me feel foolish or immature while listening to it.   Not even close.  The soundtrack was better than I remembered.  Everything about the music is melodic and magical.  It completely kicks ass.  It’s not even a question.  Even the prologue, where the guy tells the story, is amazing.  I mean, the guy is just talking.  How’s he making it sound so cool??
But that’s just the beginning!  C’mon, “Belle” is the all-time greatest opening song for an animated movie ever, especially the part two minutes and thirty seconds in where Belle sings the line about the plot in her favorite book (this theme also reappears at the one minute mark of “Something There”.)  Also, Mrs. Potts’ version of the title track is awesome and so much better than the “human” version.   I also think the beginning of “Transformation” is incredible (this is where the Beast collapses after being stabbed by Gaston).  I remember seeing the movie and thinking that the music was literally perfect, recapping the themes in a way that perfectly reflected the emotions of the scene.  DAMN this soundtrack is so awesome.
I’m sure I wrote this exact same blog entry a few years ago but I don’t care.

Reason number 1,525,142 that my job is stupid:  It is almost impossible for bad things to happen to my boss without somehow trickling down to us.  Today my boss got his work clothes stolen out of his locker at his super fancy gym during his lunchtime session with his trainer (yeah he has a trainer).  So the boss walked back into the office wearing his gym clothes and was very embarrassed (he’s not secure enough to deal with that).  Everyone was amused because he has enough bad karma for 10 lifetimes and because despite the fact that he buys expensive clothes, he still looks like an idiot.  Even though everyone was amused at the clothes getting stolen, that was quickly erased by the boss taking his bad mood out on everyone else.

Reason number 2,623,053 that my job is stupid: My boss thinks he’s the greatest legal writer in the world but just so happens to be the worst legal writer in the world.  The boss passed out a memo discussing good legal writing today.  It was so “good” that it contained sections that were unintelligible and filled with incomplete sentences.