nin137

Nick's Journal
2007-02-17 03:02:41 (UTC)

The Biggest Blunder in the Universe

well it was turning out to be like every other contracts
class. me casually fading in and out of consciousness
during a two hour friday session of our contracts teacher
explaining the statute of frauds. but then all of a sudden
he said,
"plesae if you could all please put down your computer
screen and look up here for a second."
to this everyone came out of their near comatose state and
was suddenly rapted with attention. there was something in
his voice and in the air that some shit was about to go
down. after a slight sigh, he whisked himself towards an
overhead projector which had been sitting heretofore
unnoticed to the right side of the room. he wheeled it to
the center of the room and looked up at the class.
"with all of you here becoming aspiring lawyers...i have
taken it upon myself to take this opportunity to 'enlighten'
you all with a tidbit of information when it comes to
professionalism.." with this he created a tent out of his
ten fingers, holding his palms against his chest, "a free
snippet of advice, i suppose you can say."
he then manuervered around the overhead projector so as to
stand in front of it and gazed at us...by now the whole
class wasn't even breathing, we were so rapt.
"as lawyers...your reputation is the dearest thing to you.
maybe you may wish to take a cynical view on law, maybe you
will be charitable, some of you may be hateful, some of you
may be filled with unbounding love for all humanity.
whatever your demeanor it will radiate much further than any
of your 'victories' or 'hard-fought court battles'." at
this point he heaved another slight sigh.
"your reputation is indelible, it is what will ultimately
determine the type of lawyer you will become." and with this
he let his left hand flop to his side with his palm facing
upwards,
"shunned by the professional community." and then the same
motion with his right hand only a bit higher,
"respected and revered for your professionalism."
he let out another sigh and then moved towards the projector
and turned it on.
on the whiteboard was the following,
an e-mail to the professor (with the sender's name redacted)
saying something to the extent that he was a technologically
backwards jackass who couldn't handle putting assignments on
our class website.
we all gasped in shock. who would be so brazen as to send
something like that to the teacher?
and then it dawned on all of us as our contracts teacher
further enlightened us,
"most of us know the difference between 'forward' and
'reply'..." he gazed towards the whiteboard, "alas, this
person did not."
whenever, a teacher posts something on the website a mass
e-mail is distributed from the "teacher" (normally
automatically sent by the service) telling students that new
material is available.
this idiot had hit reply instead of forward to make his
comments.
we all sat there dumbfounded.
now let me tell you about our contracts professor. i think
i may have mentioned in an earlier journal taht he is my
favorite teacher of all. he's young, energetic, and just so
incredibly affable, and likeable, and amiable, and any other
word conveying that persona, taht this was BEYOND a shock to
all of us.
i mean maybe about our property professor, or torts...but
contracts?
and then i felt really really really bad for our contracts
professor, for all of his humor and whatnot and trying to
make light of it all and using it as a "lesson" you could
tell that it hurt him on some level.
i really felt badly for him.
and then he said something which made me think,
"there is a good chance...that whoever made this mistake, is
witnessing it here for the first time, not knowing the error
of his or her ways..." with this he scanned the room.
he let out another sigh,
"the only thing i can hope is that the person who did this
realizes that 1.) i am thick skinned and will not let this
be an issue and 2.) that in a professional situation, this
would be a career ending blunder."
and with that contracts resumed.




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