One of the few advantages of growing old is that you gain experience. Whether the experience is relevant to anything is subject to debate, but you get experience, whether you want it or not. I have been in the business world for 40+ years. During that time, I have filled prescriptions for retail pharmacies of all sizes from single person apothecary shops to mega chains and for hospital pharmacies. I have attended 4 institutions of higher learning. I have two professional degrees. I have practiced law for a medium sized firm, a large firm and as a sole practitioner. I have been in-house counsel for two very large companies. I have been married twice. I have fathered at least three children and been a step parent to two more. I have lived in three states. I have bought 6 or 7 houses and multiple cars. I have observed the people with whom I have come in contact during all these situations and I have made a seriously large number of mistakes during this period, all of which translates into experience. As a result, I have devised a number of rules to live by. Some spring from my own experiences and mistakes. Some I have gleaned from observation of the other people in my world. Some are my own words and some are completely stolen from others. Some are intended to be serious. Some are stated in humorous terms but hopefully convey a serious message. Others are just silly. Indulge me, it’s my blog.
1. Observe scrupulous honesty in all dealings, except maybe the small personal ones like “Do these pants make my ass look big?” This can not be over emphasized and is an integral part of many of the other rules here.
2. Tell bad news (and all of it) immediately. There is a tendency to refrain from telling clients, employers, significant others, children, etc. bad news ostensibly to protect them from it. Really it’s just that you don’t want to do it. Things like: “Your appeal has been denied”, “I’m being sued for sexual harassment”, “I’ve been fired”, “Your sister is carrying my baby”, “Your hamster just died”, really don’t get better with age. They also don’t get easier to tell. Telling the bad news, apologizing for it, if necessary, taking the lumps and getting on with your life works much better than attempting to cover it up or hope it will go away. We have all seen high profile examples of this.
3. If you have to eat shit, take big bites. This is a corollary of Rule 2. If you have to take on a task that is difficult or unpleasant, get it done. If you are beaten, humiliated or embarrassed, deal with it, get it over with. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t avoid. It will not go away.
4. Don’t screw a client, either literally or figuratively. Two lawyers are walking down the street. A beautiful girl walks by. One of the lawyers says “Man, I’d like to screw her.” The other lawyer says “Out of what?” This illustrates both points. If you are a professional (attorney, accountant, financial adviser, clergy, etc.) and you provide services to others, in a lot of situations, the client will be in a vulnerable state. This vulnerability extends to both material (money, property) and immaterial (sex, emotional involvement). Resist strongly any temptation to take advantage of that vulnerability. Rule 1 above should cover any questions about the material matters. As to the other, if you are going to get romantically or emotionally involved, end the professional relationship first. You can not adequately provide ethical services to the client if you are also sexually involved. Disbarment, divorce, malpractice, etc. are just some of the risks you run with this.
A corollary to this rule is “Don’t screw anybody with whom you work”. I mean this more literally than this discussion above. This is also expressed as “Don’t fish off the company pier”, “Don’t dip your pen in the company ink” and “Don’t get your p***y and your paycheck at the same place”. I have observed the problems this causes on more than one occasion. Law firms are probably one of the places in which this occurs most frequently. You have highly motivated, successful, egotistical people thrown together for long periods of time, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that this happens with alarming frequency. Or maybe I have just associated with some very horny people. In any event, this almost always ends badly also. One or both of the participants frequently loses a job. Firms split over this stuff. Emotions flare and feelings are irretrievably harmed. Two lawyers share an administrative assistant (formerly a “secretary”). One says to the other: “Are you screwing our secretary?” “No”, the other replies. The first says “Good, then you fire her.”
5. Never play poker with a man called “Doc”. Obviously, this applies to more situations than just cards. Anybody with enough experience and cachet in a business situation or card game that is well enough known to have a nickname or inside information, is in a superior position to you. As Matt Damon’s character says in the movie “Rounders”: “If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.”
6. Never eat at a place called “Mom’s”. Make of this one what you will. Any place or anybody that needs to advertise themselves in such a manner, needs to be regarded with a healthy dose of skepticism.
7. Never pass up a chance to pee. This needs to be taken literally at my age. Even when you don’t need to go, you will shortly, so go now. Figuratively, it means don’t pass up opportunities because you think they will come by again. They may but not at the right time.
8. Never go to bed with someone who has less to lose than you do. If your partner doesn’t have as much invested in the situation as you do, it will end badly for you. I also refer to this as the “Bill Clinton rule”. Bill violated this on more than one occasion. Come to think of it, everybody had less to lose than he did.
9. Live each day to its fullest. Carpe diem and all that crap. This is the sort of thing that appears on greeting cards and inspirational posters. As a result it tends to get marginalized and ignored, particularly by young people. They don’t fully appreciate that the days you have are finite. As you get older, like me, you see the wisdom of this short statement. Having a friend’s mother die in her sleep at the age of 50 without prior symptoms brought this home to me. On your death bed, you will never wish you had spent more time at the office. A cliché, sure, but the truth.
10. Do not confuse the amount of money you make with your worth to society. Movie stars, professional athletes and rock stars make a lot of money. Attorneys make a lot more than the average worker. Does this mean that Russell Crowe, Alex Rodriguez and Britney Spears are more valuable members of society than your local cop, your dad that works in construction or the minimum wage maid that works a second job to help support her family? Obviously not. If you are lucky enough to make some money, appreciate it, support your family well, share it and don’t look down on those who, for whatever reason, don’t make as much.
11. If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is not so much a rule as a manner of looking at the world that you should try to avoid. It literally means that if you only know how to do one thing, you will try to force everything you approach into that mold. Attorneys fall into this approach because of familiarity, laziness or lack of creativity. There are many ways to get to your goal and being creative with the journey sometimes can be the best part.
Are these rules important? Some are, some not so much. Pick and choose to see if there is any wisdom hidden in this. Have I violated some of these rules? Yes, most of them and have almost always regretted it. Why am I writing like Donald Rumsfeld talks? Goodness gracious, I just don’t know.
1. Observe scrupulous honesty in all dealings, except maybe the small personal ones like “Do these pants make my ass look big?” This can not be over emphasized and is an integral part of many of the other rules here.
2. Tell bad news (and all of it) immediately. There is a tendency to refrain from telling clients, employers, significant others, children, etc. bad news ostensibly to protect them from it. Really it’s just that you don’t want to do it. Things like: “Your appeal has been denied”, “I’m being sued for sexual harassment”, “I’ve been fired”, “Your sister is carrying my baby”, “Your hamster just died”, really don’t get better with age. They also don’t get easier to tell. Telling the bad news, apologizing for it, if necessary, taking the lumps and getting on with your life works much better than attempting to cover it up or hope it will go away. We have all seen high profile examples of this.
3. If you have to eat shit, take big bites. This is a corollary of Rule 2. If you have to take on a task that is difficult or unpleasant, get it done. If you are beaten, humiliated or embarrassed, deal with it, get it over with. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t avoid. It will not go away.
4. Don’t screw a client, either literally or figuratively. Two lawyers are walking down the street. A beautiful girl walks by. One of the lawyers says “Man, I’d like to screw her.” The other lawyer says “Out of what?” This illustrates both points. If you are a professional (attorney, accountant, financial adviser, clergy, etc.) and you provide services to others, in a lot of situations, the client will be in a vulnerable state. This vulnerability extends to both material (money, property) and immaterial (sex, emotional involvement). Resist strongly any temptation to take advantage of that vulnerability. Rule 1 above should cover any questions about the material matters. As to the other, if you are going to get romantically or emotionally involved, end the professional relationship first. You can not adequately provide ethical services to the client if you are also sexually involved. Disbarment, divorce, malpractice, etc. are just some of the risks you run with this.
A corollary to this rule is “Don’t screw anybody with whom you work”. I mean this more literally than this discussion above. This is also expressed as “Don’t fish off the company pier”, “Don’t dip your pen in the company ink” and “Don’t get your p***y and your paycheck at the same place”. I have observed the problems this causes on more than one occasion. Law firms are probably one of the places in which this occurs most frequently. You have highly motivated, successful, egotistical people thrown together for long periods of time, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that this happens with alarming frequency. Or maybe I have just associated with some very horny people. In any event, this almost always ends badly also. One or both of the participants frequently loses a job. Firms split over this stuff. Emotions flare and feelings are irretrievably harmed. Two lawyers share an administrative assistant (formerly a “secretary”). One says to the other: “Are you screwing our secretary?” “No”, the other replies. The first says “Good, then you fire her.”
5. Never play poker with a man called “Doc”. Obviously, this applies to more situations than just cards. Anybody with enough experience and cachet in a business situation or card game that is well enough known to have a nickname or inside information, is in a superior position to you. As Matt Damon’s character says in the movie “Rounders”: “If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker.”
6. Never eat at a place called “Mom’s”. Make of this one what you will. Any place or anybody that needs to advertise themselves in such a manner, needs to be regarded with a healthy dose of skepticism.
7. Never pass up a chance to pee. This needs to be taken literally at my age. Even when you don’t need to go, you will shortly, so go now. Figuratively, it means don’t pass up opportunities because you think they will come by again. They may but not at the right time.
8. Never go to bed with someone who has less to lose than you do. If your partner doesn’t have as much invested in the situation as you do, it will end badly for you. I also refer to this as the “Bill Clinton rule”. Bill violated this on more than one occasion. Come to think of it, everybody had less to lose than he did.
9. Live each day to its fullest. Carpe diem and all that crap. This is the sort of thing that appears on greeting cards and inspirational posters. As a result it tends to get marginalized and ignored, particularly by young people. They don’t fully appreciate that the days you have are finite. As you get older, like me, you see the wisdom of this short statement. Having a friend’s mother die in her sleep at the age of 50 without prior symptoms brought this home to me. On your death bed, you will never wish you had spent more time at the office. A cliché, sure, but the truth.
10. Do not confuse the amount of money you make with your worth to society. Movie stars, professional athletes and rock stars make a lot of money. Attorneys make a lot more than the average worker. Does this mean that Russell Crowe, Alex Rodriguez and Britney Spears are more valuable members of society than your local cop, your dad that works in construction or the minimum wage maid that works a second job to help support her family? Obviously not. If you are lucky enough to make some money, appreciate it, support your family well, share it and don’t look down on those who, for whatever reason, don’t make as much.
11. If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This is not so much a rule as a manner of looking at the world that you should try to avoid. It literally means that if you only know how to do one thing, you will try to force everything you approach into that mold. Attorneys fall into this approach because of familiarity, laziness or lack of creativity. There are many ways to get to your goal and being creative with the journey sometimes can be the best part.
Are these rules important? Some are, some not so much. Pick and choose to see if there is any wisdom hidden in this. Have I violated some of these rules? Yes, most of them and have almost always regretted it. Why am I writing like Donald Rumsfeld talks? Goodness gracious, I just don’t know.
