What a business...

In high school, I studied to be a homemaker or social worker (truly, there wasn't that much difference in the curriculums). In college, I started out as an engineering student then changed my field over to computer systems.

What I should have done was become a lawyer.

Last year, I had an accident. A moron, and I use the term accurately, ran a red light and sheared off the front 8 inches of my Explorer. Now, my Explorer was 9 years old so I didn't carry collision insurance on it. I figured, rightly so, the insurance company would total it. The vehicle, even at its advanced years, is worth more than what they would have given me. It still is for that matter.

Anyway, I digress.

I suffered a whiplash. Went to chiropractic care for 6 months, had physical therapy for 3 months. X-rays. Pain meds. Now, none of this was totally dibilitating but still--none of it, the pain, the suffering or the expense of repairing my truck was my fault.

So I went to a lawyer.

He took my case, told me to send him documentation about my treatments. And I did. Right through December. The last letter I sent told him that the treatments were all done. I waited for some kind of response. And waited. And truly spent a lot of time forgetting about it--I do have other things going on after all. But finally I thought--sheesh, it's been 10 months since I contacted him or vice versa. So I called him.

Imagine my surprise when his legal assistant told me they'd decided to drop the case. That they'd sent me a letter, no TWO letters! last October. That they'd even called and talked to me.

Now...I might be getting old, unless you die there isn't much of an alternative. But I never received any letters or received any phone calls and I told the gal that. I asked for a copy of the letter but, oh my, it's been packed away with the other 2004 files so she didn't have it. She did--oh so helpfully--suggest that if anything had changed (ie my condition had worsened) they'd consider taking the case.

AS IF!

When you're in a business, you have to take care of your clients. I don't blame them if they feel I don't have a huge case. I do blame them for not contacting me as they should have in the interest of lawyer-client arrangements. And I certainly would not return to a lawyer who couldn't send/call/contact me about our business arrangement.

So I trained to be a homemake/social worker. Then I trained to be an engineer or computer programmer. And I've elected to be a professional writer.

I should have trained to be a lawyer.

No wonder there are so many lawyer jokes floating around.