The Lipstick Joke
In the late 1980’s or early 90’s I got conned by a friend into doing some work at an attorney’s office. My contract when working for attorneys affords them fewer rights than the Microsoft End User License Agreement, essentially saying I will show up, they will pay me every time I show up, they have no expectation of anything actually happening as the result of my showing up. I am not interested in having definition arguments or law suits, so I avoid working for attorneys.
One of the partners at the firm was a woman who collected female attorney jokes. She may have been planning a book, or was just weird. In SoCal both are possibilities.
One of her favorites was:
What is the difference between a rabid pit bull and a female attorney? Lipstick.
Actually, I sort of liked the gender neutral:
What is the difference between an catfish and an attorney? One is a slime-sucking bottom feeder and the other is a fish.
At my billing rate I could afford to laugh.
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Q: Why don’t sharks eat lawyers? A: Professional courtesy.
Q: What do you call 5,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A: A start.
And so on. I think all lawyers collect them.
I’ve worked for one attorney on two occasions, and may soon do more work for him. He’s in international law. For a while, he was chair of the local Amnesty International chapter. Before that, for a while, he was an attorney for the local ACLU. Somewhere in there, he ran for State Rep. with a ‘D’ by his name, at a time when that virtually guaranteed a loss. He has been a pleasantly reasonable client, the sort for whom one is highly motivated to do one’s best work. I suppose when you’ve got the legal chops he’s got, you don’t feel threatened by anybody, so you don’t have to be mean except to adversaries.
This law firm was essentially class action law suits with big payouts. They bought all kinds of hardware and then decided after it arrived that they wanted a network and to include an office in another state through a modem connection.
I was involved with one application and refused to do anything else for them because of the sneaky manner in which I was roped into the job.
They were under the impression that computers were going to make up for their sloppy work habits and poor scheduling. They couldn’t keep office staff because of their attitudes, which may have served them well in the court room, but made office administration a mess.
“…planning a book, or was just weird. In SoCal both are possibilities?”
Oh, Bryan…you know in LoCal it’s not “planning a book”….it’s “working on a screenplay!”
Screenplays are too intense for San Diego county…movies are a lot of work.
My time in Sandy Eggo has been mainly in Del Mar….at the track.
One of brothers lives there, but up on the hill, not down in the valley.