In Defense of Lawyers

I've been a pretty poor blogger this past couple of weeks because I have been getting crushed at work (literally, crushed).... Case in point, I've been sent to Hong Kong for the past 5 days to close a deal and have been working til 5 a.m. every night! So apologies, and I'll get better....

In Defense of Lawyers

My father hates lawyers....with good reason I'll add. But, as I AM a lawyer, I would like to make the following points in their defense:

1. We don't WANT to work til 5 a.m. every night pushing paper for whiney clients....we do it because whiney clients work til 5 p.m., when they send the information over to us and say, "can we please have a draft of this by 9 a.m. tomorrow" -- then they go out for dinner.*

2. Clients set the pay scale....they basically want us to be available 24 hours/7 days a week.....think of how much you'd have to pay a plumber for that kind of service. You want me to work on Christmas? Fine, but you'll pay for it.

3. Yes, we're mean, yes we're grouchy, yes, we'll push a grandma in front of a moving vehicle if it gets us to that meeting on time....BUT....we've also subsisted on 2.5 hours of sleep per night since leaving law school. Caffeine has become the foundation of the food pyramid.

4. We're out of shape, unhealthy, tired, stressed, living on caffeine, living with ulcers, lonely (since we can never maintain friendships) and unkept (since, truly, showers are optional).....long story short, we're miserable, stressed-out secretaries, at the beck and call of people who are only concerned with themselves.

Yet STILL, we're the butt of hundreds and hundreds of lawyer jokes** and the recipients of true animosity (bordering on hatred). My point? Give the lawyers a break. We're miserable too.....

* "Please" in this scenario, actually means, you will do this, and you will like it, or we will fire you and hire {Blank} law firm instead.....

** See Lawyer Jokes.

The Lilliputian Palace

I have lived in some small apartments in my time. I guess its the old joke about New York, but those of you who are not actually New Yorkers have no idea how bad of a joke it really is.

First, there was the apartment in Clinton Hills, Brooklyn (and with no intentions of offending anyone I do have to add, that it was in the ghetto -- and really, shouldn't you at least get a decent size apartment when you're living in the ghetto??). My bedroom in this apartment was tiny. Really, almost nonexistent. Let's put it this way, I had a futon, and when I folded it out, it took up the entire room. And the TV was in the closet!

Then there was the second Brooklyn apartment, this one in Brooklyn Heights which is, ostensibly, the "nice" part of town. This one was so small it only had a mini-size fridge in it! I'm talking the mini-bar variety like you see in some of the better hotels. If you put some OJ and yogurt in there it was a tight squeeze.

Finally, there is my current New York apartment. It's definitely a step up from the earlier two (and is in Soho which I adore) but to make my point, my pup Lucy doesn't even have to lift her head to watch me walk from one end to the other.* Yes, its that small.

But all of that pales in comparison to the apartment I'm living in in Sydney. It is the smallest apartment I've ever lived in......tiny....miniscule. Yesterday there was a moth on the chair across the room and I felt crowded.** It is so small that the kitchen sink (and accompanying dishdrying area) IS IN THE LIVING ROOM. Yep, just sticking right out of the wall. The kitchen, on the other hand, is in the small hall you walk through as you come in the door. To tell you the truth, I'm not actually sure why they bothered with the kitchen sink....after all, you can reach the bathroom sink, turn on the taps, and fill a saucepan with water all while stirring the pasta sauce on the stove. It is THAT small. To illuminate my point, here is a picture from the website that pushes this Lilliputian palace:

Does this look spacious to you? Please note the kitchen sink to the far left of the picture. Oh, and this had to have been taken with someone standing ON the couch, back pressed against the windows. Basically, this is the whole apartment. For more pics see here.

Now what I don't understand is WHY? Australia is the 6th largest country in the world (by pure land mass territory) but it only has the 53rd largest population. Seriously, it's not for a lack of space! Spread out people. The rest of the world is waiting for you.

Oh and HERE IS THE BEST PART....ITS $800 A WEEK! No joke. Someone should be sued. Thank goodness I'm a lawyer!***

* She does though. In fact, she will follow me from the living room, to the bedroom, to the kitchen, to the bathroom and back to the living room. All of which amounts to about 10 steps.

** For some reason there has been a moth infestation the last couple of days. Trust me, its worth its own blog so you'll see it sometime soon.

*** My company pays for it so I really shouldn't complain. It's the principle of the thing though....I mean really!