You will find stories of people getting fired for social media posts and I have zero sympathy for that. Probably because I almost bought it once, for trying to get a client.
As discussed over the past 14 years, I worked for two years at a law firm. It was so much dysfunction, that you would think I worked there for 10 years. When I started there, in the New York City office, the idea was that I would develop a national ERISA practice and I could use the existing clientele as a building block. Even though partners could net 50% of the fees I charged for their clients, there was not much interest. So I thought I could contact my former clients at the Third-Party Administrator (TPA) where I worked. Since I left that TPA, it took 3 people to replace me, and their fees were hiked by 50%. I sent an email to an advisor with multiple clients, offering my services on a required ancillary amendment for less money than what the TPA charged.
The TPA found out, and they weren’t happy. They sent a threatening letter to the most senior attorney of the New York City office and called him the Managing Attorney. I was supposed to attend the New York Comic Con that Friday and get some free, exclusive products as a Diamond Comics wholesale account holder. I had to cancel those plans when the firm’s Managing Attorney, Lois, demanded I show up the next day to see her at the Garden City office. She was mad.
Around that time, one of the partner’s sons became the Governor of New York at the time and since the partner of the firm was a big union lawyer, there were concerns over a conflict of interest.
So for about a half hour, I was berated by Lois. Lois had to name Governor David Paterson and the Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi who both had fathers who were partners at the firm. What this had to do with an innocuous email to drum up business, I don’t understand. The stress of Paterson becoming Governor had gotten to her. Honestly, the large offices in Garden City couldn’t fit her ego because she was also miffed that the TPA’s attorney thought the attorney in the New York City office, a man, was the managing attorney, and not her.
By the way, Paterson was the most incompetent Governor of my lifetime and Suozzi lost re-election by 400 votes with millions in the bank. Lois just liked to name-drop.
As Henry Hill said in GoodFellas: “The way I see it, everybody takes a beating sometime.” With two toddlers at home and a mortgage to pay, I took that beating. No matter how absurd it was, no matter how much Lois disliked me from day one. Less than two years later, I knew my time there was up and I just decided that I could no longer work for someone like Lois. I don’t think my wife ever heard the story before, because I’d keep things from her, especially the abuse, and she can’t believe I’d get yelled at for trying to draw business.
Lois’ incompetence, eventually helped downsize the firm by 3 offices and 50% of their attorneys. I still go to the Garden City office because it’s the same building as my allergist. I never see anyone from the firm there, and I have never seen Lois. For the past 14 years, I have
talked about her and mocked her. I can say that from all the abuse, I was not going to be like her. I’m sure over the past 14 years, she has never thought about me and I certainly understand that, but I knew 14 years ago, how she was killing the firm and getting awards from the local publications for that.
In the normal world, we support and reward employees, who on their own, decide to try to draw business. In the Theater of the Absurd, we attack it, because we can’t handle stress or handle the job.
