So Mike Triforce recently got lit up when he commented on a guest post by Sweet Hot Justice on ATL.  The post consisted of a girl complaining that she was too perfect to date. She made too much money and was too attractive and too much fun to be around. Here at Debtor’s Prison we think you are likely to have a slightly different problem when it comes to meeting relationship material.  Like most of our problems it is a compound quandry. Whereas endless debt can be broken down into borrowing too much for too little and little to no economic opportunity and water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen so too can stagnant dating be broken down into friend erosion and of course the constant shame of debt and perceived under achievement.

Because of Benito this blog has a tendency to treat debt and unemployment as two almost interchangeable phenomenons. This is not the case and nowhere is it more evident than dating. One of my favorite analogies is that unemployment is like race and debt is like sexual orientation (aka one is readily discernible while the other can be disguised if one so desires but both are often the cause of discrimination). An unemployed person simply cannot afford the wine/dine entertainment heavy initial phase of dating. A debtor can just put it on his or her credit card and pray.

I think there should be an all encompassing term or score that is derived from one’s employment or lack thereof, age and debt, but that is a topic for another post. The salient point here I think is that if you have trouble meeting people it’s because of friend erosion.

Face it, you’re out of school and there is nothing else quite like it for making friends. If you all don’t go to the same location afterwards you see your friends less. If your friends are somewhere where they are closer to other elements of their circle they become closer to those friends and drift farther away from you. So if you can’t afford to live in Center City like everyone else because of that loan payment or move back to the suburbs because you lost your job well…relationships change. Suddenly you are not tagging along to work happy hours or tapped to escort a friend’s significant other’s friend to a wedding or concert.

And this is the reason this ultimately may be a commentary post as opposed to advice…I have no idea what to do about this. All I can say is that anything you do to try and meet people to fill this gap be it yoga, joining an animal rights group or pretending to follow a sports team will ultimately end in failure.  The WORST thing you can do is join a faith community to meet people. This is stupid because most religions have guidelines about dating AND it’s a horribly disingenuous thing to do.

I would say as things stand now a relationship is most likely to occur in the following situations: 1) doing something you’re ALREADY passionate about 2) doing something that requires alot of sans internet downtime and 3) the internet.  If through debt and/or possible unemployment or underemployment you’ve managed to hold on to your position coaching your nephew’s swim team because you were an All-American in college there’s a chance you might meet a kid’s aunt/uncle/older sibling.  You’ll be in a familiar environment where you hold some authority and that’s your best chance to display the qualities that might attract a mate.  Your next best chance is a situation where you’re just around a certain group of people alot without internet.  Long drives and campaigns come to mind.  Hanging around a bar or convenience store doesn’t count, the proximity must be brought about for some kind of point like getting to a destination, be it physical or political.  Finally there is the internet.  Statistically this is a valid place to look for relationships and you’re not one to look down on anyone.

The worst part of all this is that it shatters another illusion. You thought if you did everything right you’d be ok even in a shitty economy. Well, you wouldn’t be here if you still believed that. You also thought your friendships were based on deep special bonds between unique individuals not simply chance and convenience.

We pray not to be brought to the test because the results are so often heartbreaking.

So there have been alot of things to get used to working at my new job.  Just about everyone goes on vacation between the 4th of July and Labor Day.  Just about everyone works between 8 and 6.  Many people are content with their current jobs and plan to work there until they retire.  They see their children and significant others.  If you refer to someone as the “nice” guy that’s usually not enough to identify them.  If you refer to someone as an “asshole” usually that is enough to identify them.  But there was always something more…and unfortunately for nurses that “something more” was the fact that my new profession wasn’t subservient to another.

I know being a paralegal and a nurse have many differences, but at the end of the day they are subservients to lawyers and doctors respectively, and it doesn’t matter if the former has been on the job 40 years and the latter is on their first day…JD equals “Just Do what I say” and MD equals ”My Decision.” 

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In my last post I mentioned that most people at my company don’t have student debt.  I sat on this for awhile, wanting to come to my own conclusions without comments from Benito and the Peanut Gallery. I think I finally figured it out. Nobody wants to be a “Management Analyst” or a “Program Manager” when they grow up.

My first instinct was greed. I still think that’s a big part of it. People associate wealth with the Ivy League and top schools and doctored statistics or not the hazy promise of wealth does it for most people.

But let’s look at the heaviest student debtors – doctors and lawyers, well that’s almost too easy. Follow that with the hazier “captain of industry” or boss and you have another group due to that pesky MBA.

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Law Firms are not complex organizations. Lawyers come in essentially two flavors: associate and partner. Associates, office space and furniture, cases, clients and profits (in reverse order of importance) belong to partners and the more you have of each the more important you are. Everyone else, secretaries, paralegals, tech guys and contractors are chattel, somewhere between a chair and a mule, with of counsels being an anomoly (think talking Donkey). Other offices are more complicated.

I think the biggest difference between a law firm and a regular office is the frequency of disputes with no clear winner. Even first year associates have different leverage walking in on day one and if a dispute occurs (usually over a hook-up that shouldn’t have happened) prior connections or the female associate’s willingness to sleep around quickly determine who has the upperhand.

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Where’s Erin been? It seems that’s the question nobody asked. I feel the love, really I do. I am glad my contributions are so appreciated. I hate all of you.

To recap: this job is a means to an end. I am with this soulless corporate conglomerate for free education. Truly free education. Even a full ride to a school has opportunity cost. Here I can work while I put in time towards completing my degree thereby using my old law school credits and earning an MBA on top of that.

It’s also better than working at a law firm. There is still a hierarchy but it’s more fluid. I am a “Management Analyst” like a sea of faceless others. There is also more anonymity too. If someone is not on your project team chances are you don’t know them and they don’t know you. Also not everyone knows your exact salary.

Deadlines are looser and less arbitrary. There is also a thing called a “Project Manager” who is responsible for seeing that tasks get finished competently and on time. This individual often is not a “boss” but rather a, what’s the word…”colleague.” People in the legal world don’t have these. It’s just bosses, partners, clerks and associates.

People here also look better. When I guess ages I am off usually by 7 years, 10 if the person is over 45. People don’t brag about never seeing their families or sexual debauchery if they are over a certain age. I have yet to be sexually harassed.

The only mistake I’ve made is talking about how things used to be. I told a story about Mike Triforce and…blank stares. It wasn’t even that they thought I was full of shit it was just they had no context for a world that could operate like that. It’s kind of like when taxpayers find out how their money is spent.

My biggest disappointment is that the office isn’t like the TV show with the same name. It’s just, well, an office. That’s all for now. Hopefully it won’t be another month before I write again. Not that anyone would notice.

So if this was any other blog I, the most consistent female contributor, would be going on some wild zany trip between jobs where I would discover my lesbian side and drive a car that only only people who don’t have to work at all drive. Well sorry guys. If you’re looking for a sex fantasy you’ve come to the wrong place.

Instead I am going to elaborate on the plan I mentioned earlier about how to get the rest of my JD paid for and earn another degree to boot. Read on for the details.

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So rather than regurgitating something from ATL three or four days after it gets posted I thought I’d share my news and my plan.  I think step one is self-explanatory if you read the title.  The last straw you might ask? One of those canned “farewell” emails that a laid off associate who still believes in the networking fairy sends out instead of putting as many of his belongings as possible in a bag before security arrives.  This farewell was special though.

Was it sarcastic? Did it rip the firm a new one? No.  Was it a stream of consciousness nervous breakdown?  No that wasn’t it. Read on to find out but if you’re an above the fold type person I will give you a hint.  It has to do with the length.   It was exactly three and a half sentences.

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So Benito every now and again adds another blog to the blog roll and one of them is called “Sweet Hot Justice.”  I decided to peruse the blog and what I found was…well I don’t know how to describe it.  It read like a bunch of excerpts from Lisa Scottoline novels, only more risque because it doesn’t have to appeal to the 55+ crowd that constitute 90% of Scottoline’s fans.

This post is NOT another rant about Lisa Scottoline, and it’s also not a call to arms for female attorneys.  I’m not even sure what this is.  So I suppose read on and we’ll find out together.

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I’ll admit it. With my Law School transcript on the verge of expiring I am beginning to get jittery about just letting the damn thing expire. I worked my ass off my first year and though I don’t regret my decision to leave but when I made that decision I always knew I could just go back.

Then there’s the grades. I really WAS in the top 10% my first year and taking orders from associates who haven’t passed the bar and got worse grades is getting more and more tiresome. This goes out to all the under-employed student debtors struggling with whether to play it safe And keep struggling to make ends meet by eating a plate of shit served up by someone who didn’t pay their dues- or doing what you have to do to rectify the situation.

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It’s summer associate season here at my firm.  In this miserable job climate summer associateships are not the paid 12 week booze fests they used to be.  The kids come in knowing they have less than a 50% chance at landing permanent gainful employment…on the first day.  Some even hold on to that precious realism for a full week.  By Week 2 though most are drinking the firm Kool-Aid and are convinced that they will get a job despite the odds.

I used to think “drinking the firm Kool-Aid” was just an expression for swallowing the lies an organization spoon feeds you to engender loyalty until you are tossed out in the street like a self-employed prostitute.  Who says a working girl doesn’t need a pimp?  But then I realized that there seems to be an actual correlation between eating at the firm and swallowing the lies they feed you.

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