Antagonism

Have you ever woken up really desperately wanting to pick a fight with someone? Not necessarily anyone, though at this point I might take it. I feel like I have a great deal of pent up aggression lately. Part of this stems from my overriding frustration at state employees that is still burning strong. Yes, I'm still on that. This is why I think I'm certifiable - I get completely fixated. It takes a while to drop it. Unless the courthouse burns down sometime between now and this weekend. I probably just got myself on some government hit list when I wrote that. No, I'm not burning down the courthouse. I'm just saying. If I saw it happening, it might make me feel better. A little.

Anyways, today I woke up wanting to yell at people. I'm going through a bit of a phase where I feel like I'm right a lot. This doesn't happen often. Most of the time I concede; I'm actually a really big pushover. But at the moment, I am wondering why the world is not conforming to my personal viewpoint. It's really quite egotistical; part of me is enjoying it immensely.

Take people who go around being confrontational, for example. I have a particular friend - that I love dearly and I wish every happiness for - who, if someone looks at her, has about 15 things to say about that person right then and there, starting with belittling their intelligence level and moving on to their choice in hairstyle and footwear without missing a beat. I'm not saying a particular someone. Just anyone. If you happen to be walking down the same street as this individual, pray that you do not accidentally let your gaze fall upon her form. If you're like me, you'd just walk right on by when she started in on you, not giving her the satisfaction of a confrontation. One of these days, I'd like to witness it if someone actually tried talking back to her. I'm fairly certain they'd lose an eye.

I've questioned this individual on multiple occasions about the personal philosophy that must accompany this tendency. I have mused aloud that I'm quite relieved she and I met under friendly circumstances, as I'm pretty sure that otherwise I would have allowed a wayward glance to cross her way and promptly had my face boiled off by her wrath. Her response is: "It's different."

I have not really probed the depths of this idea of "different." I'm not quite sure I understand how someone can encounter so many "different" glances in such a short span of time as she tends to. I have probably run into only three or four "different" glances in my entire life. She is quite gorgeous; perhaps that's it? I'm not sure - I don't belong to that particular category of human being, so maybe I'm missing something. (That is not me fishing for compliments; I can be pretty when I want to be, I just tend to be kind of lazy with my clothing/makeup choices.)

My question, though, ultimately, is: Does this individual really believe that, by attempting to pick fights with every person whose eyes have the unfortunate tendency to slip her way - or, really, that does something she finds particularly offensive (but is really quite harmless), does she believe that the world is going to change through her efforts? People are still going to be rude and do minor petty things like stand in the middle of a hallway where people are trying to walk. And unfortunately it's just not a physical possibility to let everyone on the planet know that you do not want to be looked at. I therefore question all the wasted effort and all the time spent getting worked up over such silly things.

And really I keep looking back to the broader societal issue of: why the hell can't we all just get along? What's the point of being confrontational? I tend to go by the "benefit of the doubt" philosophy. If someone looks at me or is in my way or what have you, I tend to assume they are not being malicious. Perhaps they aren't self-aware. Perhaps they've had a bad day. But really, I don't understand harsh reactions to people. Kind of like I don't understand why state employees are rude. I don't really know why anyone is rude. We're all in this together. We are all muddling through these societal constructs we've created for ourselves, dealing with enough meaningless bullshit day-to-day, that I don't see why we have to make it that much more difficult or unpleasant for each other.

Call me a hippie. I'm really not. Perhaps after reading a few too many cases about promissory notes and negotiable instruments, I'm starting to wax philosophical as a means of escaping. I wonder, what's the point of it all? I listen to politicians on the news. I've always considered myself quite conservative, but these days they all come across as blah-blah-blah. I really don't care what they have to say, either side. It's hard to get riled up when it's all the same shit, just re-packaged and re-canned for a different day.

I'm probably just going through the same existential crisis as the next graduate student. No problem. Nothing a bottle of Cherry Pepsi can't fix. Seriously, have you tried this stuff? It's awesome.

First Post

Hi, I'm Kelly, and I'm a law student.

Wow, it's good to get that off my chest.

I'm creating this blog because, honestly, I am fairly certain this entire experience for the last year and a half has made me certifiably insane.

I'm not particularly in the mood to recap "up to this point" at the moment; maybe soon, but not right now. Generally I'll probably use this space to rant out into the ether. Rage at my fate. Etc.

The things most likely to appear in my blog will consist of my experiences as a law student, a law clerk for a small divorce firm I'm currently working for, a married woman, and a generally crazy person.

Currently, what's on my mind is... state employees.

I. Hate. State. Employees.

And I have to deal with them every single time I'm at work.

Don't get me wrong - there are good ones. Just like any profession, there are state employees I look forward to seeing, who are friendly and good at their jobs. But for some reason, the state sector seems to attract an inordinate number of a particular breed of individual that, for some reason, thinks s/he is entitled to work in a semi-customer service position and yet not practice any form of common courtesy. In fact, many of them are downright rude - for no reason. And somehow they can't be fired. Please explain to me how this makes sense.

Example 1:

I occasionally cover hearings for work where we just have to go in and enter agreed orders to get a continuance. Not a big deal - you explain to the judge what is going on in the case and then get a date, usually 30 to 45 days out, to meet up again, pretty much until the case settles or goes to trial. This happens many times throughout the life of your average dissolution case.

One judge's assistant in particular, for some reason unbeknownst to me, has it out for me. I don't know why. I have been in this judge's courtroom approximately 3 times in 7 months - there is no reason this assistant should know me from Eve. Despite my problems with state employees, I am undeservingly polite to each and every one of them - I say please and thank you and wish them a nice day at the close of every interaction. It's won me some favor with a few of them, but somehow this individual seems to find me grossly inconvenient and/or offensive despite my exceedingly limited contact with him.

After a hearing with the judge, I must approach this assistant in order to schedule the next hearing date for my case. Typically the interaction goes something like this:

(I approach the assistant, who is jotting things down on pieces of paper at his desk; I wait to be acknowledged - I consider this the polite thing to do, rather than interrupt him in the middle of whatever he is doing)

(He continues writing things down on paper; he shuffles the paper around; pretty soon it is apparent that he's not really doing anything, he's just making me wait. He's aware of my presence but, for some reason, has decided to ignore me.)

(I wait still to be acknowledged, feeling that I am just being polite; other clerks and attorneys are starting to line up behind me to get dates. Everyone is getting impatient.)

(Finally I give up waiting.)

"Excuse me, could I please get a date the week of XYZ for case number #?"

(He responds with stony silence, as if I have just said something horribly offensive. I wait, knowing that he, like other judge's assistants, is supposed to check the availability of that week before giving me an exact date.)

(I wait some more. People are still impatient behind me.)

"What date you want?" he finally asks, not even bothering to look at me.

I tell him.

"Yeah sure fine."

I jot it down on my order, give it to him for approval, it goes to the judge's clerk, and then I'm out.

I turn to observe on my way out. No one else seems to be having this problem. He is giving out dates in a perfectly polite manner to each person that approaches.

This causes me no end of confusion. As I said, I am a non-entity to this individual - he has never really met me before, I am just one of a hundred anonymous individuals he will meet that morning. Yes, there are regulars that he does know. But there are people like me, all the time, that are there only sparingly, forgettably.

Yet it has been the same every single time when I do this. I have gone to drop off courtesy copies for the judge and been standing there for literally a minute and a half waiting for this person to acknowledge me so I could ask who to give them to so they don't get lost in the shuffle.

Am I off-base here? Isn't it normal for someone to wait politely until they are acknowledged before speaking? Isn't it normal to acknowledge someone?