nin137

Nick's Journal
2007-05-06 23:14:42 (UTC)

Group Politico

i've never had the displeasure of being a part of what is
commonly called, "office politics." this is mainly so
because either a.) i wasn't worth a shit wherever i worked
enough so as to be involved in office politcis or b.) i
worked in a monolithic institution where everbody liked
everybody else. but i have started to get a tast of what it
may be like after our little group...eh, should we call
it...break up.
last semester it was me and 4 other guys. we got together
and studied for our exams thorughout the semester and just
generally bounced questions off one another. this semester
(as word of mouth got around about grades) our group swelled
to double its size. there was teh core group of five and
five (adn in the spirit of lost) "others".
now i really didn't mind the "other" five, but i was
starting to notice a growing vibe of resentment about them
from 2 of my core group members. now...granted, that the
extra five weren't exactly rhodes scholars, but they were
anything but an impediment. well at least 3 of them weren't.
you see there are essentially two types of people who don't
know things. the ones who don't know anything, realize it
and largely just ask questions to get them answered, and
those who don't know anything but believe and insist that
they do. the former are fine grouops as thy usually
don't slow shit down...the latter? a complete fucking
disaster in group discussions.
imagine a law study group as a freight train barreling from
montana to wyoming with a bunch of cow shit. it's all a
dangerous load cos if it spills the conductor and his fellow
helpers will get covered in the shit and start to smell like
it. now imagine there being a back seat driver who's like,
"well why don't we take route x?"
with the conductor (who has a map and knows where he's going)
says,
"because x will take us off a cliff."
"oh."
then there's a guy who's always fiddling with the buttons,
levers, and gear who doesn't have a map and has no idea what
the fuck is really going on, and he says,
"dude, why don't we take route y? route y is obviously the
way to go."
and instead of listening to the conductor he recklessly
jumps on the lever, pulls it, and changes the tracks.
then after about 30 mins going down the wrong way the
conductor is able to take the train back on the correct route.
this is essentially what started to happen in our group.
every god damned time we'd get side-tracked by tristan,
sarah, and eric.
they kept on arguing with us as to why it should be there
way and not ours. and of cousre the thing with a legal rule
is that it is very much like a railroad track. if you don't
head down the legal analysis on that rule, you're headed for
a cliff no matter how smart you think you are.
i actually got into an argument with eric about how an offer
can't be a "promise to revoke" because a promise and an
offer are fundamentally different (which is why the
Restatement of Contracts defines them sepeartely).
it makes no sense to make an offer a promise, because that
way an offeror would always be obligated to an offeree by
virtue of recharacterizing his offer as a promise, which is
patently absurd!
whoa, got side-tracked there. but you get the idea.
anyhow, after 3 meetings with the "expanded" group our core
group decided to make a secret train and drive it our own
god-damned selves.
group politics like whoa. yeah i felt like an asshole (and
still do) but at this point i don't give a fuck. ha, good
thing working life won't be like this....christ...
anyhow, last night i was waatching this infomercial for
"lighted house numbers". essentialy it was advertising how
you better have your house numbers visible or else you're
fucked.
the infomercial was hilarious, cos it showed these people
showing up with a birthday cake and waking these people up.
and then it showed these cops busting people for something
cos they misread the house numbers. utmost comedy.
but then there was one thing i didn't get. the lighted
house numbers had a 5 year warranty.
how much shit can really go wrong with lighted house
numbers? how can you not throw a lifetime warranty behind
that shit? eh...guess it's just me to expect the utmost
perfection of light-reflective white paint.
finally, our contracts exam was fucking murder. bar none
that was teh hardest exam i've ever taken in my entire
fucking life. anyhow, i was getting out of the classroom in
a daze when i saw somem girls huddled together and one had
puffy eyes.
she had been crying and still was.
i felt so badly for her. i mean talk about pressure. i was
reading this article later on that day about a terrier who
saved these little kids that he was playing with from two
pit bulls. i was reading it and something started welling
up inside of myself. and then i realized to my complete
horror that i waas about to cry in the law library!
*sniff, sniff...crazy fucking terrier...so brave...so
sweet...sniff sniff...got something in my eyes...sniff sniff...
law school exams have to be over..and soon, before i start
bawling in front of a chipotle worker cos she's out of barbacoa.




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