DEAD FOR A GYM BAG AND SOME DEODORANT

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Two days ago, a Manhattan lawyer dropped her gym bag onto subway tracks on the Upper East Side. She leaped down to fetch it. She had difficulty getting back onto the platform, then she panicked as a train came rushing into the station. Horrified witnesses froze. Some told her to lay between the rails so the train would pass over her. Most said nothing and just watched. The lawyer tried to press herself against the platform wall so the train would pass her. It didn't; the train squashed her.

Later, officials reported that the gym bag contained keys, a cellphone, gym clothes and some deodorant. See N.Y. Post, Panic on tracks doomed subway victim, March 13, 2010 at p. 5. It did not contain priceless diamonds or even confidential client files. There was absolutely no need to risk life to save it.

I recount this sad story because it represents yet another occasion on which my writing has foretold true events. Just last month, I penned a satire called "Some People are More Valuable Than Things They Drop on the Tracks." See http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2010/02/some-people-are-more-valuable-than_01.html. In that piece, I analyzed the New York Transit System's admonishment never to chase dropped property onto subway tracks. I used satire to show that our society places disproportionate weight on property over human life. At the same time, I made my own perspective clear: That it is grotesque to assign monetary value to individual lives. Still, my own sarcasm now seems eerily macabre in light of this new incident: "Further, I understand that some customers might disregard their own safety if they drop something onto the tracks, such as an iPod or other relatively expensive object;" and "The bottom line is: Property is worth more than individual human beings."

I was trying to elicit uncomfortable laughter when I wrote those words. Anyone with a shred of compassion understands that property is petty compared to human life. Yet at the same time, it is incontestable that property wields immense influence over both our society and individual perspectives. All too often, property seems to mean more than life itself. My satire reflected on that sad truth. It dared to suggest that life was more important. Privately, I held out hope that people would respect their lives more than their property.

But my hopes fell on deaf ears. The Post story shows just how much property means to people, even in very small amounts. Here was a woman with a career--and ostensibly, something to live for--who disregarded her life to save some deodorant and gym clothes. Her property was more important to her than her existence. So she jumped after it, even as a train raced toward her. At that moment, she thought herself less valuable than her gym bag.

Perhaps there are alternative explanations. I can think of several. For starters, the Post article recounts that the victim was a "lawyer" who--according to neighbors--used to wander hallways and elevators in her apartment building "muttering to herself in a strange way." See N.Y. Post, Panic on tracks doomed subway victim, March 13, 2010 at p. 5. One neighbor even said she looked "distressed" and that she was "not 100 percent there."

Many functioning lawyers have latent mental problems. When I practiced law, I knew many "well-respected" attorneys who muttered to themselves in elevators, sighed loudly, grumbled in abject frustration and habitually balled their fists from stress. It is not an easy job. "Getting results" in court is not an exact science; in fact, it is not a science at all. There are no sure things in law practice. Lawyers live with biting uncertainty and deadlines every day. They live on a razor's edge; and they are surrounded by striving, ambitious, ruthless people at every turn. They make their living battling contentious people for money. It is an extraordinarily negative enterprise. Their success depends on chance as much as preparation. Everyone wants something from them: Clients, bosses, judges. Everyone wants results now and no one wants to wait. There is never enough time; and there is always something else to do. They live under the clock; and the clock does not forgive. In fact, no one forgives. It is a fretful, ulcerous existence. That is why it is no wonder that lawyers fall into alcoholism, drug abuse and mental illness at a far greater rate than the general population.

Lawyers on schedules are dangerously unpredictable creatures. You don't want to get in their way; they might do something impulsive. When they have somewhere to be, they get there at all costs, even if it means taking absurd chances with their own lives. I own recalled my uncomfortable days in law practice when I read the Post article. I remembered what stressed-out lawyers are like. My memories helped me understand why this poor woman jumped on the tracks: She was in a hurry; she was trying to squeeze in the gym during her busy day; she did not want to wait for help to get her bag because that would throw off her schedule; if she got behind schedule, she would have to make unpleasant phone calls to disappointed superiors; she wanted to get home before 9 PM; if she waited for help to get her bag, she would never finish her day; and she really wanted to finish her day on time.

On an impulse, she jumped onto the tracks. She did not want to wait. She did not want to make those phone calls. She did not want to fall behind schedule. So she took matters into her own hands and died for deodorant.

I am glad I don't practice law anymore. And no matter how much my satires presage reality, it really saddens me when they do. I am not proud of it.

In the end, it's hard to exaggerate anything to satirical effect. Reality always sees your bet, no matter how high you make it.

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MUST WE ALWAYS BE LINKED IN?

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

I don't like telephones. If I'm not expecting a call, I can't stand it when the phone rings. Basically, I don't like interruptions. I like focusing on things. I like dedicating my energy fully to a project and getting it done as well as I can. When some fool calls me about new cable service or a municipal election, it breaks my concentration. I don't like small talk, either. I don't like reporting what "I've been doing lately," "how things are going with me," "what I'm doing this weekend" or "how the job search is turning out." I would just rather read and write in peace.

Telephones used to terrorize me in law practice. My bosses expected me to be on the phone all the time: Call the client; call opposing counsel; call me; call your colleague; call the court; call the expert; call the printing service. All meaningless, vacuous, unstimulating calls. Either that or confrontations over the phone: "Give us the documents...no. Get this done now...no. I'm going to sanction you for this...go ahead; see if I care." Nasty, nasty shit.

Telephones allow people to attend to business without "actually being there." In many ways, this is advantageous. But when people try to do too much every day, they abuse the telephone. It gets ridiculous when you make and take 1000 calls a day trying to get everything accomplished from afar. I mean, how much can you really do over a phone line? Good old-fashioned face-to-face contact is a gravely underestimated commodity these days. I think excessive telephone use cheapens human exchange. And telephones cause unreal stress when abused. You can run away from a person. But you can't run from a person with a phone. In a word, telephones can take away your peace if you let them.

And I'm just talking about regular land lines. Cell phones made matters worse. As hard as it is to field phone calls from behind a desk, in the old days at least you could go home and escape the dreaded rings. Once you left the office, the phone could ring all it wanted; you couldn't hear it. As recently as the early 1990s, people had more peace in their lives because they didn't carry their phones with them everywhere they went. Now, everyone and their brother has a cell phone. You can't escape your phone now, even if you want to. Even you leave your house for a moment to buy a gallon of milk, someone can ring your cell phone. You are always on call. You must answer. How can you experience peace if you're worried about who might call you every minute?

American society is obsessed with contact. People don't want to be isolated from others even for an instant. They need to know what others are doing all the time. They need to reach them at any moment. While this might yield some "real-time" benefits, I argue that our society's obsession with constant communicative contact makes it more difficult to find peace than it was only 20 years ago. Some call me an "old soul" because I shut myself in a room for several hours every morning and pull the phone line out of the wall. But I just want some peace. I like the idea that I have time to myself each day when no one can reach me, even in an emergency. If something horrible happens, I'll find out about it when I'm ready. Yet in most cases, if someone calls me, it won't be an emergency. It will be a sales call or a pollster. Screw them. I don't want to hear it. Thank God for caller ID.

I understand that I am a mighty rare bird. I have always relished outdated communicative means. I write handwritten notes. I like meeting people in person. I like face-to-face conversations. I embrace technology to the extent that it makes my daily routine easier. But I do not dive headlong into real-time contact with everyone all the time. I joined Facebook mainly as a free forum for my writing and to learn about old friends. I've had a cell phone since 2000 because sometimes I need to let people know where I am. But I don't update my status every 20 seconds, nor do I make random calls to everyone in my contacts folder. No, I want peace.

I just can't understand why so many people want to know "what's going on with everyone" all the time. For example, I cannot ride the elevator in my apartment building without seeing some well-dressed woman on a mobile device furiously typing something. Strangely, it's always a woman, and always white. I see them on the weekends, early in the morning, at night, in the evening, you name it. What are they writing about? Why? To whom? It can't just be about work: You don't write work emails at 11 PM on Saturday, do you? I can't figure it out, but that's because I'm Balthazar Oesterhoudt, an antiquated man who likes reading, peace and quiet. Can someone tell me what these women are scribbling? What the hell is so important? Can't it wait until they get where they're going? Why couldn't they write the message before leaving the apartment? Why try to do four things at once? These questions perplex me; and they make me question my place in this linked-in society: Do I even belong in this century?

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote a polemic called "Uncontemporary Observations." He dared to criticize beliefs and trends that most people in his day simply assumed to be valid. I continue that tradition. I do not like this linked-in society and I find it quite disturbing. I like privacy. More and more, our society willingly cedes its privacy in order to "let everyone else know what's going on with us all the time." Sadly, even professional success now depends on "how many people you know" and "how well you communicate with lots people in your 'network.'" That, in turn, engendered an entirely new--and distinctly American--concept in the English language: "NETWORKING."

I don't "network." I maintain human relationships with as many people as I can. I do not cultivate relationships that I know won't go anywhere. And I certainly do not calculate relationships in order to win petty career advancement. I don't like using people for selfish ends. Yet this is precisely what "networking" demands. I am not "successful" in the linked-in world because I do not like exploiting others for my own gain. I actually take pride in that. If I fail because I do not properly "network," I consider that a compliment.

But again, I am a mighty rare bird. I take my time when I speak, read and write. I don't stop reading something because it's over a sentence long. I relish life as it comes; I don't try to manipulate it according to a plan or expectation.

People who "network" don't have time for that. Every conversation must yield a tangible benefit; every contact must have a "purpose" that leads closer to a "goal." If you write something, it had better be short because these folks are in a hurry. There is never enough time for them. And that's why there is no peace in the linked-in society. You have peace when you have enough time each day to meaningfully pursue your own heart. If finding peace means turning off your cell phone for a few hours, I say do it.

Speak when you want to, not because you must. That will bring you some peace. Unplug yourself for a while. It is quite rewarding. Who knows: You might actually feel human again.

ANOTHER BREAK

My partner is coming home today after 23 days in the hospital. For the next few weeks, I will have plenty to do as he acclimates back to life; helping him make that adjustment will undoubtedly affect my ability to write posts every day. My schedule is already filling up with appointments and errands. Nonetheless, I will try my best to find the time and energy to write. I am not going anywhere. Hopefully, I will get a chance to reflect and assemble some new ideas in the meantime.

Thanks again to all my readers. I wish I could be more productive these days. But you know the reasons why I can't be. Still, I have amassed over 1000 pages now. If you ever thirst for an essay or satire, just scroll down the archive list and enjoy. I promise I will write when I can. And when the most serious stresses have past, I can assure you that I will post every day again.

I am staying positive! I really know that things will turn out for the best. There is little evidence to support me in that belief, but that doesn't matter to me. Sometimes you just know things.

I will write as soon as I can.

Oesterhoudt

I'M HAVING A HARD WEEK : PLEASE BEAR WITH ME

It's unusual for me to go several days without writing a post. Since September last year, I have weathered many changes. I even moved from Chicago to New York. But I always managed to keep my mornings free to craft out the myriad ideas I had assembled for so long before I started writing this blog. This week, however, some real household problems sprang up that have denied me the chance to concentrate and write in the morning. Worse, they have made it hard for me to sleep, and I can't write anything when I'm exhausted.

I've never really written an "explanatory" post like this. But today I think it's appropriate because I really don't know when these hard times will end. My life partner is going through hell with medications; his troubles spill directly into my life. For the moment, I do not have any untroubled hours to spend writing. I have faith that things will improve soon, but I can't say how fast all this will pass. In the meantime, I must attend to some genuine stresses.

It is actually surprising that I have written for so long without a substantial interruption. But life rarely cooperates for long. I can't foresee how life will turn. I can't really even explain why things happen. I just need to step up and deal with them when life deals me funny cards.

Please feel free to browse me archives. And I promise to start posting again as soon as my circumstances permit.

I am so tired. I haven't slept a real night's sleep in about two weeks now. Please forgive me for suspending my writing until I get things under control here.

Oesterhoudt

HAPPINESS, UNHAPPINESS, WORK, CAREERS AND DRINKING

AN ESSAY

When I practiced law, I learned the real meaning of the word “unhappiness.” I have garbled memories about my months in practice. Impressions flitter back to me without warning. No matter how they reappear, they put a bitter taste in my mouth. They confirm to me that I made the right decision to abandon the legal profession. They remind me just how awful I felt every day in a law office.

Before I practiced law, I never thought much about the concepts “happiness” and “unhappiness.” In my young mind, happiness was uncomplicated; it simply meant that you generally “felt good” in your circumstances and that “nothing was wrong.” Applying that definition, “unhappiness,” too, was easy to understand. It was just the “opposite of feeling good.” “Unhappiness” depended on “happiness.” If I knew one, I could abstractly imagine the other. I never considered that “unhappiness” could have an independent meaning.

It does. The mere fact that the word “unhappiness” contains the word “happiness” does not mean that “unhappiness” depends on “happiness.” To the contrary, “unhappiness” is a unique, pervasive, all-consuming feeling of malaise that darkens your entire outlook on life. It is not merely the absence of happiness; it is much more. It is a poisonous, enervating, hopeless mental condition. When you are unhappy, life appears bleak and pointless. Days pass slowly, even torturously. You just want to lie down and go to sleep. You expect bad news at every turn. When you are unhappy, you do not think to yourself: “I am not happy.” You think: “I am unhappy; and unhappiness has nothing to do with happiness.”

Practicing law made me unhappy. I could not bear to get up in the morning. I would lie in bed and pray that the minutes on the clock would not pass. From the moment I walked into the office, difficulties arose. My supervisor would yell at me for failing to make a phone call or fax something. She would reject my explanations with vague advice, such as: “You need to do better, remember more and move faster.” Of course, she never told me how to make people answer the phone or return calls. Nor could she tell me how to make the U.S. Mail move more quickly. Whenever I mustered the effort to fulfill her requests, she had a fresh rebuke for me. She called me names and told me she would dock my pay if I kept “fucking things up.” I tried to emphasize that no one had trained me. She told me to train myself by reading a 900-page “best practices manual.”

I felt disillusioned. I entered law practice after a very successful law school career. I thought my academic success would carry over into practice. It did not. Whenever I talked about legal theory, I was told to be quiet and do “case management” instead. That meant making phone calls and setting up appointments with doctors and engineers. Law had nothing to do with my practice. It was an elaborate horse-trading game that happened to revolve around a courthouse. All the while, intimidating people besieged me from all sides. My own supervisor told me I was incompetent. My adversaries called our lawsuits “baseless, stupid and worthy of sanction.” I even made judges angry because my supervisor instructed me to file idiotic motions in court. In short, I was castigated for following orders as often I was for failing to follow them. It was classic Catch-22 material.

My life degenerated into pure negativity. Nothing ever felt right. No matter what I did, I expected to be insulted, censured or criticized. I never received even one encouraging word from anyone. I remember losing interest in everything, even things I really liked. My libido vanished. Lawyers in my firm sympathized with me. But they, too, endured the same hardships I did; they had little time to worry about me.

And I could not escape. I stayed in the office for 11 hours or more for six days a week. I had no vacation time. I received cell phone calls before and after I left the office. The bad news and mean-spirited criticism never ended. Six months into my law practice experience, goodness seemed to have evaporated from my existence. It had become one grim, emasculating failure after another with no end in sight. My boss even reneged on a promise to increase my salary after six months, explaining: “You haven’t earned it yet.”

That’s when I learned what “unhappiness” really meant. I quit. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Since then, life has dealt me more tough cards. But at least I do not face ridicule, scorn and criticism every hour. I happier now than I was when I practiced law. In any event, I know I am not “unhappy” anymore.

Could anyone be happy in such circumstances? I remember something my supervisor said to me one Friday evening. It was about 6 PM. I was working on something that had to be done on Monday; there was still a long way to go. I knew I was going to be back in the office on Saturday, but I wanted to knock some work out before the weekend. Everyone else had gone home except my supervisor. She wanted to leave, too. So she came into my office and said: “Would you wrap it up? You’re cutting into my drinking time.”

I will never forget that. It made me seriously think about life, careers, happiness and success. Here was a successful law firm manager who divided life between “work time,” namely, Monday morning through Friday afternoon, and “drinking time,” namely, Friday afternoon through Sunday evening. When she said “I was cutting into her drinking time,” she implied that she drank at any moment she wasn’t working. For her, life was binary: Working and drinking. She must have liked drinking, because she did not like the fact that I was keeping her at work during her drinking time. If she had liked working, she would not have minded staying at work for a few more hours. But she was upset because I was encroaching on “her time,” and in “her time,” she liked drinking.

I am sure this is a common sentiment. But what does it really say about happiness and success in America? People are so proud of their jobs, especially people—like my supervisor—who achieve prominence and wealth. Yet despite this pride, they always yearn for days off so they can go get drunk. People say they love their work. But if they would prefer drinking to work, are they really being honest with themselves? Sigmund Freud wrote that intoxication is the “purest, most effective method” by which to ward off unhappiness. Civilization and its Discontents, S. 44 (Fischer Verlag, 10th Ed. 2007). Drinking “drowns cares.” If my supervisor loved drinking, she must have had “cares” she wanted to “drown.” This showed me that, beneath the collected exterior, she was somehow unhappy, too. She may not have been abjectly unhappy, but she must have been unhappy enough to want to drink as soon as she got home on Friday night. My unhappiness sprang both from my ill treatment and my disillusionment with a profession that cared nothing for the principles I struggled so long to master. My supervisor’s unhappiness came from some other source. I do not know what made her unhappy. She was powerful and had much more money than I did. She commanded people around the office and owned three apartments. Yet she was upset with me because I delayed her weekly rendezvous with the bottle.

Can we ever really find happiness in employment? It seems that every working person “lives for the weekend.” I know I do whenever I work a “traditional job.” I do not delude myself by saying “I love my job.” I do not like being a servant. I do not like sacrificing my time for a few dollars. Sure, in many cases it is necessary to sacrifice time for money. But that does not mean I like it. That is why I meticulously count the days toward Friday. During the week, a part of my mind always resents the idea that I am stuck doing someone else’s bidding for a shekel or two. Friday, however, represents a liberation from service. Working people divide their mental lives between weekdays and weekends. Weekdays are boring, stressful and unsatisfying. Weekends are exciting, free and fun-filled. The human brain does not like stress, obligation and constraint. Yet it loves freedom and fun. If it came between weekdays and weekends—and if money were not an issue—everyone would choose the weekend: Who would willingly face stress and obligation if there were no compensation for the pain? That is just the way our minds work. It is easier to be happy when you do not face stress, ridicule and failure. Even if you do not face extreme pressure at work, you still have to show up and sit in one place for over eight hours a day. Your brain would much rather be doing other things during that time, like drinking, sunbathing, shopping or surfing. That’s just the way we are, no matter how much guilt-ridden social programming we’ve absorbed to the contrary. We are trained to say “we love to work at traditional jobs.” But this is self-delusion.

Ironically, traditional jobs tend strongly to induce unhappiness. They consume time, leaving only limited opportunities for personal satisfactions. The fact that so many people—even wildly successful people—yearn to drink on Friday night is compelling evidence that people would “rather not be working” if they had the choice. More to the point, the persistent mental distinction between “workday drab” and “weekend fun” vibrantly illustrates that employment makes people unhappy. Workdays are “unhappy time” and weekends are “happy time.” It is childishly simple, yet accurate. “Weekend fun” makes us “happy.” “Weekday drab” runs us down, then thirst for “fun.” Without sufficient “fun” in our lives, we are not “happy.” We may not be truly “unhappy,” but we set ourselves up for unhappiness.

All this makes me wonder whether our entire social program even cares whether people achieve happiness. We learn to work at traditional jobs. We hear rhetoric about it all the time. It is “good” to have a stable job. It is “good” to know your place in the workplace hierarchy. It is “good” to spend your best years serving some company’s economic interests. And it is “good” to make money in the process. We hear that it is important to “be happy.” But how can we be happy if we spend 72% of our lives (ie, 5 days from every 7) wishing it were the weekend? Is it “good” to be happy only 28% of the time? Against this background, it almost seems revolutionary to want happiness 100% of the time. No offense to office workers, but if you say you are “100% happy” at your job copying papers, answering phones, staring at spreadsheets, delivering coffee and cataloging documents, I don’t believe you. I know that every Wednesday morning you secretly say to yourself: “Only two more days to go….only two more days to go.”

Happiness should not be a revolutionary sentiment. I made it my goal in life. I have experienced unhappiness. It is deeply unsettling. It makes you doubt life altogether. It makes you just want to give up. Still, avoiding unhappiness is more difficult than it seems. In our society, we learn to serve. We learn to spend our time to benefit others in order to win some monetary reward. Only a few have the freedom to spend their time as they please. But happiness lies in the power to say: “I will do what I want to do.” On weekends, working people say: “I will do what I want to do,” and they do what they want. On weekdays, they say: “I must” and they do not do what they want to do.

This is not a good recipe for happiness. Yet this is the program we’ve received from day one. When we sit in an office dreaming about the weekend, we understand just how little time we have to be happy in this world. Freud put it best when he said: “Our chances for happiness are already limited by our constitution as living organisms. But it is much less difficult to experience unhappiness.” Civilization and its Discontents, S. 43 (my translation) (Fischer Verlag, 10th ed. 2007).

When we divide our time between “work days” and “drinking days,” we obviously don’t like the work days as much as the drinking days. Yet we work much more often than we drink. Where does that leave us? Or do we drink because we work? If we do, what does that say about work? Should we defend it so proudly?

THE DISAGREEABLE ASSHOLES' LEAGUE FOR TOTAL STRESS, PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS AND, BY THE WAY, FUCK YOU, TOO

By : Ms. D. Samantha Crabtree-Farkingbeech, Esq., Partner, Cunting, Snidewell, Screech & Dourpott, LLP, a Fortune 250 Law Firm Specializing in Client Service to the Software Industry; J.D., Harvard Law School summa cum laude (1990); Author, “Work is the First Word in Work-Life Balance,” (an American Bar Association Publication)(2008); Voted Best Litigator, Atlanta, Georgia Bar Association; Married; Mother of two.

God fucking damn it. What the hell do you want? Can’t you see I’m in a hurry? I’ve got a meeting in five minutes. Do you think I have time to sit down and talk to you about this? Maybe you didn’t notice, but it is a weekday; I’ve got deadlines. If I don’t call Dick Henry back in five minutes we could lose four fucking million in fees. And I’ll be damned if I let that happen. Not on my watch. Shit, now my phone is ringing again. Who the fuck is it?

I didn’t make partner in this law firm being nice. If you want to succeed here, “being nice” is not an option. I didn’t bill 4100 hours last year and set a revenue record kissing ass or being polite to people. Sure, maybe a smile here and there for a judge or a client is OK. But once you start working cases, you’d better hang up your nice hat and start acting like a winner. Winners don’t ask; they tell. When opposing counsel asks for a delay because their witness is running late, you tell them: “Fuck no. We had an agreement. You signed it.” Then you make phone calls and yell at people for costing you time. Basically, you’ve got to put some gravel in your voice, break out your BlackBerry® and start telling some junior associate that they have their head up their ass because time is ticking.

Yeah, I’m stressed. Yeah, I take Tums. It’s stressful trying to win cases for software companies, especially when they have all kinds of dirty laundry to hide. Do you know how difficult it is to sift through 40 million pages looking for some damning admission some low-level programmer made in 1993? Do you know how difficult it is explaining to a judge how you’re going to catalogue 700,000 boxes of documents on some custom-made computer program? You spend more time defending your dumb-ass IT staff than talking about the case. At least you don’t have to talk about the law. The law doesn’t win cases. Management does. And management is stressful. Do you know what it’s like to take 230 phone calls every 16 hours? Do you know what it’s like trying to keep everyone’s name straight? Have you ever been so busy that you can’t even squeeze in time to take a shit? Welcome to my life.

But I don’t regret anything. I came a long way to get where I am now. I’m proud of myself. Not everyone can be a partner at this law firm. You need to take hits for the team in order to make it here. You need to handle stress every day. You need to juggle 14 different tasks at once, yet somehow still bring in new clients, win existing cases and cover up negative information about old clients. That takes serious talent. It’s not easy to remember every single fax and email you sent in May 2007. They all sort of blend together after a while. But that’s what separates the women from the girls: Women remember every piece of paper that ever crossed their desks; girls forget phone conversations two minutes after they end. You can’t pull anything over my eyes. If I see something once, I remember it. If I hear you say something, don’t try to lie to me later, because I remember everything. I can even remember if you used the word “of” in 2004. That’s what makes me a killer lawyer: I remember what people say. Yeah, it’s stressful. But it sure pays off.

I started the Disagreeable Assholes’ League for Total Stress, Professional Success and, By the Way, Fuck You Too in 2005. I started the party because successful people like me need a real political voice. We don’t have time to sit around and debate political topics. We have copies to make, depositions to take and phone calls to return. We don’t even have time to screw our husbands on Sunday afternoons, let alone talk about health care, environmental protection or voting rights. Yet we deserve to be heard because we are successful Americans. Just because we spend every day working our asses off at high-end law firms doesn’t mean we don’t exist.

We exist, all right. And we’re damn important, too. We believe it’s time for people to know just how important Disagreeable Assholes are in this country. We believe all Americans should know what it takes to achieve professional success. We believe all Americans should understand what it means to be a winning professional. We are determined to dispel the myth of slacker success. No one gets anywhere in this country being nice. No one sets billing records or revenue standards with smiles and apologies. In this law firm—and in every other respectable business enterprise—only winners survive. Winners are not just assholes—they are disagreeable assholes. Anyone can be an asshole. But not everyone can be sufficiently disagreeable to achieve professional success. Assholes complain, whine and make things difficult on everyone around them. Disagreeable assholes do all that plus cite legal rules, refuse to show mercy, reject appeals and never experience joy. Most importantly, disagreeable assholes enjoy arguing, fighting, resisting and contesting anyone who stands in their way.

For us, being “disagreeable” is a way of life. We do not feel good about anything. We fight everybody and everything, all the time. We don’t stop until we’ve been paid. We are always anxious, stressed, angry, pissy, vengeful, uncompromising, unforgiving, devious, nefarious and mean. We do not agree on anything; that’s what makes us disagreeable. We disagree on where to go to lunch, what to do on Thanksgiving and how best to copy 40,000 documents. We disagree on how much to leave as a tip, how best to get to the airport and how to greet colleagues. And we especially disagree with any suggestions made by our opponents. If our opponents suggest holding a meeting in the Sheraton because it is close to our offices, we will disagree and insist that we hold the meeting somewhere further away. If our opponents suggest that we split phone costs on a case, we will disagree and threaten to obtain a court order imposing full liability on them. We disagree for disagreement’s sake. In this business, being an asshole is not enough; one must also be disagreeable.

People say that “disagreeable” is a negative word. They even say that “assholes” are not pleasant. We disagree with both assessments. In our view, our critics fail to understand that professional success depends on assholes; more particularly, it depends on disagreeable assholes. No one achieves fantastic financial success in the United States without bitterly fighting over everything. Professional success means merciless combat every day until either financial victory or heart failure. In professional life, competition abounds. Everyone is out to take your money. Everyone plots ways to steal your business. Everyone is conspiring, eavesdropping and conniving—even supposed friends. Cowards and nice folks don’t stand a chance. Cowards and nice folks let opponents walk all over them. But disagreeable assholes sniff out treachery at every turn. They suspect everybody and everything. They scream, yell and threaten until the problem subsides. We are problem solvers.

We say to our critics: How is that negative? Wouldn’t you protect your business with all your strength? Our critics can complain all they want that we are “hard to get along with” because we are “disagreeable assholes.” But frankly we don’t give a shit. We’re the top revenue producers. We’re the partners. We won. They didn’t. They can go ahead and be nice. Who’s living in the villa, and who’s renting the crappy studio in Queens? Let our critics complain. In our book, being labeled a disagreeable asshole is a compliment, not a pejorative.

Our critics also say that stress is bad. They say that professional success is important, but not when it imposes excessive stress. We disagree. Disagreeable assholes like us know that stress is a badge of honor. We work for a living. We don’t screw around or wait for 5 o’clock. No, we stay in the office all night and beyond. We sacrifice everything to win, even our health. We don’t worry about the husband and kids. They can take care of themselves. When it comes to professional success, winning is more important than family and health. True, winning is difficult. Competing for victory raises emotions and causes anxiety. But so what? To be a winner you need to compete like a winner. That means relishing stress, not complaining about it. We have high blood pressure. We get ulcers. We sigh all the time. We shout. We snap at people. We throw things. We castigate and insult. We stamp our feet and tremble. We break out in sweats and guzzle coffee at midnight. We lose our hair at 30. We get hemorrhoids. We eat fast food. We worry constantly whether we’ll make deadlines. And we are fabulously successful.

This is just how we roll. It pays off, too. Winners don’t relax; they stress out. Stressing out wins cases and makes money. What is so bad about that? When all is said and done, people remember the disagreeable asshole who screamed and threw binders around at 4 AM before the big filing, not the chilled-out copy boy who went home at 4:45 PM the day before. Put simply, relaxation and tranquility do not yield professional success. In that light, we are proud to be stressed. I might have ulcers and hemorrhoids. You don’t; but who’s the partner with the $1,400,000 annual salary? I’d rather be a disagreeable, stressed-out asshole with a seven-figure salary than some relaxed nice guy who struggles to pay cell phone bills and travels by bus.

We are the Disagreeable Assholes’ League for Total Stress and Professional Success—and by the way, fuck you, too. We include that final phrase because we really don’t care what anyone says about us. We are in charge. We are more successful and richer than our critics. Our critics do not want to adopt our lifestyle, so they just resent us. We have a word for them: If you cared about your career, you would act like us. We didn’t tell you to be polite and friendly. You made a choice to be agreeable. We made a choice to be disagreeable. Our choice brought us stress and success. Your choice brought you relaxation and poverty. We employ you; you work for us. So you can criticize our lifestyle all you want. It won’t change who’s in charge. Disagreeable assholes rule this world. Nice guys like you just follow along and try not to get run over.

But you don’t have to stay polite and poor. If you really want to make a difference in this world, you can stop being nice and start acting like a disagreeable asshole. You can be a winner, too. Stop insisting on “work-life balance.” Start competing. Start mistrusting and exploiting. Start swearing and sighing. Get your calendar straight through 2011. Start yelling at people. Stop tolerating incompetence and tardiness. Make people afraid when you walk into a room. Get some stress in your life. You can do it. You need to stop thinking that stress is bad. Stress makes fortunes, and fortunes yield success. The choice is yours.