Editor’s Note: “In an Awful Bind in Birmingham” first wrote Legal Underground last week. Unfortunately, in order to protect his identity, he’d changed so many details about himself and his situation that his problem wasn’t understandable. After being asked if he could try again, he did. – Evan Schaeffer
Dear Mr. Schaeffer:
You were right. I fudged a bit in my first letter. Frankly, it happens every time I find myself under incredible stress. It’s not that I lie, exactly, it’s that I slip into a comic writing style invented by Woody Allen in his 1972 book Without Feathers. I promise not to do it again. That’s my intention, anyway--although to be perfectly honest, I might be distracted by the wild parakeet that just landed on my shoulder, told me it was the latest addition to Arianna Huffington’s stable of bloggers, and asked if I had any good posting ideas.
Oops. There I go again. I apologize. It’s parrots that like crackers, so this thing must be a parrot. While I’m looking for something to feed it, let me get right to the point. My problem is that the partners at my law firm have a number of habits that are frowned upon in the business world. One of them is that they require me to work an inhumane number of hours. Another is that they’re willing to penalize me if I don’t. While this is also true of other professions--the profession of being a garment worker in a third world country, for example--those other professions don’t require you to take on a huge amount of debt in order to get into the club. But my profession did. For me, it meant a boatload of student loans, a new Mercedes for my wife for having to put up with being married to a lawyer, the mortgage on our large house that says to all my relatives that I used to be a schmuck but now I’ve made it, and my extensive wardrobe of silk dresses that complement my very hot feminine side.
No, no. Not the dresses. That’s just the stress talking again. And my relatives still think I’m a schmuck, especially after one of them found out I often go to a club across the river where I pay women to smack me in the rear end when I get down on all fours and hee-haw like a donkey.
Oh, God. That’s not true either. Your patience must be wearing very thin. Here’s my question: Do you know a way I can tell my bosses to go to hell without taking on the risk of losing my job? Even though I hate my job and would love to lose it, I have my family to think about, not to mention the traveling circus of Iranian midgets who wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves without me. I love them all like children and carry their pictures with me in my Palm Pilot. Can you help?
Signed, Still in an Awful Bind in Birmingham
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