The article that wracked me with that feeling this morning was "A Woman-Led Law Firm That Lets Partners Be Parents." Excerpt (buried deep in the long piece):
One reason Ms. Simon and Ms. Geller don’t feel they have to sneak out of the office is that there are no offices. The firm shuns a permanent home in favor of a shared work space managed by a company called Metro Offices, where it rents a conference room for an hour, an office for a day, as needed.... They did this partly to encourage their employees to work from home and on their own schedules....Delights? Guerrilla-style? This is unswallowable. They found 2 women who have been struggling to do something for a short time, show little sign of success, and are somehow celebrated in the NYT with head-slappingly unbelievable puffery. Now, I know my readers will attack this article, but that's not the same as comments at the NYT, which is serving up material like this because it thinks its readers will lap it up with pleasure. Did they? I bet they didn't! Show me the comments!
The other advantage is to hold down expenses, of course, which allows the Geller Law Group to maintain reasonable profit margins while charging less than competitors with higher overhead.... To keep track of one another, the lawyers and a paralegal meticulously update their shared Google calendars and communicate constantly through Gchat.
Ms. Simon delights in the guerrilla-style logistics of a mostly virtual firm....
By the way, in case you're wondering if fathers appear in this article, the answer is yes. Once:
Ms. Geller wanted to spend part of her daytime hours around her children without giving up on a legal career. “I saw no role models who didn’t have a husband as a stay-at-home dad,” Ms. Geller said of the partners at the large firm she left before starting the Geller Law Group in 2011. Ms. Simon wanted to be home for dinner and attend school events without worrying about how it would affect her annual review.There is one other cameo appearance by a man in this women-having-it-all puff piece:
The firm’s lone male associate, Michael Munson, told me he left the firm in February because he craved the camaraderie of colleagues.Oh! It's the man who wants more real, flesh-and-blood relationships and the women who delight in the guerrilla logistics of living on line? Pay no attention to that problem, lady NYT readers! Ms. Simon gets lots of face time with one 4-year-old boy. She's able to leave meetings early and fight through an hour of "punishing rush-hour traffic" to get to that child whom she rewards with a smile when he says "Mommy, I have an idea... Why don’t we eat noodles and watch superheroes?"
Now, lady NYT readers, isn't that just a dream of the way the world should be? Silence!
UPDATE: 5 minutes after I put up this post, I saw that the NYT opened a comments section on the article. I am positive that it was not there before, because there isn't one comment on the article yet. (And I'd searched the page scrupulously for a comments icon before writing this.)
Posts
74 comments:
The feminist equivalent of beach body advertising.
How do you see yourself as differing from this self-indulgent spoiled brat crap?
I see you profiled exquisitely in this bullshit.
You're the queen of spoiled brat identity politics. We have to kiss fag and fag hag ass to make you happy.
You're the Bishop of Butt Fucking. I am always amazed that you seem to find a way to deny that you are a leading proponent of spoiled brat hysteria.
Butt Fucking is your religion. Get a grip, prof. You are the ultimate spoiled brat, rotten white girl.
Evidently, your myopia in this regard has something to do with your perception of yourself as a "moderate" member of your law school faculty. Makes me wonder what the fuck kind of shithole you work in. (Well, really, I know.)
The early bird does not always get the worm. Sometimes the worm isn't up yet.
Still not one comment up over there.
that...is a sick burn.
I worked for a start up law firm of NYU grads in the early 80s... probably classmates of yours.
Three Jewish guys... hustlers every one.
While they were developing a successful practice in corporate and litigation, which ultimately merged into a huge law firm, you were sitting on your ass in a sinecure... doing nothing but bitching. You haven't done a lick of work in 45 years.
Usual course for a whiny, self-indulgent woman, right? Stereotypes are so often true.
This article is about you, Althouse... lazy, self-indulgent women who want their asses kissed. Hell, you even want us to kiss your son's ass, as if he were royalty, because he's gay.
Up all night again, Thomas? Get some rest.
Jesus, Shouting Thomas. You're being abusive.
Anyway, I liked the part where she sneers at the thought of a stay at home husband. She wants her man out there providing for her and her child.
Got agree with the man who left. Virtual meetings don't quite cut it, especially when you need to bounce spontaneous ideas off each other. Also, why do lawyers get away with using Google apps for business? There were some doctors who got slapped with HIPAA fines for using Google to share their surgery schedules. Couldn't imagine using it safely for confidential matters.
I've worked at home since 1987. There's lots of face time with the dog, time to scythe the lawn in work breaks.
That's pretty much having it all, the other plus being that the job (scientific programming) was always also a hobby.
The minus is that it left me a climate science denier, owing to knowing something about what ought to make it through a real peer review.
There are so many sites that make finding the comments a complete pain. Are they trying to make me accidentally click on the ads? Another article to increase their click count? Who knows.
Others that seem to have an ad hoc policy on them. Maybe comments, maybe no comments. Oftentimes if I find no comment section, I bypass the article and rarely go back to that site.
It is always a pleasure to come back here and know exactly where to find the comments.
Now I will go read the article and see what all the fuss is about the lawyers working from home.
And the word is commgitation.
The truth is that families work much better with a stay-at-home parent, especially if the working parent wants to have a high-power, demanding career.
The desire for female equality doesn't cause there to be more hours in the day. In this article, you can read between the lines that everyone is suffering in ways that would be alleviated if there were a solid, happy, responsible stay-at-home parent.
There's a lot of stressful wasted time driving in traffic and worrying about getting to where you need to pick the child up. Great, she made it, but the risks are stressful and what happens when she doesn't make it? And there will be no healthy, home-cooked meals, no real quality time. Even when showing off for the NYT writer, the planned evening is eating junk food and watching bad television.
I mean, I give credit to this woman for trying, but she is no role model. The decent role model is what Geller said she saw in the law firm: a stay-at-home dad (if it's the woman who wants the high-powered career). Second best is a full time servant, a nanny.
Up all night again, Thomas? Get some rest.
I'm retired, prof, which means I don't have to put up with assholes or mind my speech.
You could have done something worthwhile with your law degree, instead of just becoming another whining spoiled brat bitching about identity politics.
I spent for six years in a corporate law firm, listening to spoiled brat women like you, both lawyers and in HR. I don't know how you stand your own shit. If I'd have had to put up with assholes like you for one more day, I'd have blown my brains out with a shotgun. I walked out in the middle of my shift to get away from your hysterical spoiled brat white girl act, and I don't regret it.
Abuse is essential with lazy ass spoiled white women like you. The "niceness" and "softness" tactics you employ cannot be fought in any other fashion. The first necessity in tearing apart your bullshit is refusing to play your game.
the feeling of annoyance and loss that comes from reading all the way to the end of a NYT article with one thought foremost in your head
Artikelendelesenärgerverlust.
Remember, absence is the equivalent of a 'no' vote.
After ten years of running a Guerrilla style law firm, I can tell you that it is harder than they make it sound. Working out of the house with contacts via google and email is harder than it sounds. There are days when I would love to go into an office and have coffee with coworkers and BS about the big game next weekend. I have to make due with inventing characters to comment on my favorite LawBlog.
It has allowed me to be a stay at home dad and put kids on the bus in the morning and be there when they get off the bus in the afternoon. Being content with a middle class, midwestern life style makes it possible to control the hours worked and get a home cooked dinner on the table for them occasionally. Working in a megalopolis would be untenable as a single parent. For me soccer games were a 10 minute drive and the grocery store is a near daily encounter with the total trip taking me 20 minutes. It also gets me out of the house, which is why I look forward to grocery shopping.
The firm shuns a permanent home in favor of a shared work space...
...in the basement of a Chinese nail salon.
dbp said...
The early bird does not always get the worm.
The early worm gets eaten by the bird.
If it works for them, okay. I don't see that it merits a serious story, but the NYTimes is more puff-piece anyway.
Ms. Simon is described as having sly grins and wry smiles in the article (What tedious writing what Noam Scheiber!) I wonder what the divorce back-story is.
Oh, Althouse! I have had that sinking feeling before too! I thought I was alone. It does need a word.
Commentgeschlossen?
Ann Althouse said...
The truth is that families work much better with a stay-at-home parent, especially if the working parent wants to have a high-power, demanding career.
The desire for female equality doesn't cause there to be more hours in the day. In this article, you can read between the lines that everyone is suffering in ways that would be alleviated if there were a solid, happy, responsible stay-at-home parent.
Ding. We have a winner.
Which parent is more likely to be happy in a "high-power, demanding career?"
Which is more important, most "high-power, demanding careers," or bringing up small children to be good, productive members of society?
In this article, you can read between the lines that everyone is suffering in ways that would be alleviated if there were a solid, happy, responsible stay-at-home parent.
I can never understand "feminism"'s rejection of this model. I see this sexist idea all the time from professional women - "Well, the male boss has expectations based on having a stay at home wife, which aren't realistic for women." Well, yes, of course. There's no comparison. Someone's got to parent the children, and that person (or people) is going to have to give something else up to do it, including time at work. Having a stay at home spouse who specializes in the parenting part, and a hard-working spouse who specializes in the career part, is a perfect solution.
I'll bet that the women who are insistent that both parents in a family should be able to have lucrative professional careers are "very concerned" about income inequality, too.
Althouse gets results.
Traditionally, most American family men were stay-at-home dads.
The desire for female equality doesn't cause there to be more hours in the day.
You're not in pursuit of equality, prof.
You're a rotten spoiled brat who always bitches for more, nor matter how much you have.
Kinda like all the other spoiled ass, whining white women. No real complaint. Just bitch, try to get the chivalry gland running in the men, and demand more. Pissing on other men in the name of something or other is always attractive to men, and you are a pro in evoking that chivalry.
Dealing with spoiled rotten white American women is like dealing with a toddler throwing a tantrum, except that, unfortunately, you can't spank them.
Speaking of pissing on other men in order to woo the fag hags, who should appear but... Meade.
Sick fucking shit.
I'll bet that the women who are insistent that both parents in a family should be able to have lucrative professional careers are "very concerned" about income inequality, too.
Heh, indeed. As they rely on a childcare model of paying the childcare provider substantially less than they make.
I need a word that means: the feeling of annoyance and loss that comes from having paid for a subscription to the NYT.
I'm retired, prof, which means I don't have to put up with assholes or mind my speech.
I am afraid that you have read somewhere that rudeness in old age is amusing, which is quite wrong.
Even though I regularly complain about the content of the comments at NYTimes (when the are allowed) I do miss them when they aren't there. And it's hard not to think there is some political agenda behind the choice of what articles allow comments and which do not.
Althouse was fine with rude satire when she was young and wanted to undermine people in the job she wanted.
See her Dylan obsession.
The speech codes, gentility, softness, etc. are all means to stop people from ridiculing her in the same way she ridiculed her elders when she was a kid.
One thing you can say about Althouse is that she's a pro at trying to rig the game in her favor.
"The firm shuns a permanent home in favor of a shared work space managed by a company called Metro Offices, where it rents a conference room for an hour, an office for a day, as needed...."
Pretty much the same set-up a Pimp arranges with a seedy motel for his girls' 'appointments'.
Commonalities.
I am Laslo.
The male Jewish partners in that 3 man firm that later became a power player in NY law all routinely worked 20 hour days and never bitched to anybody. They were eager to make a buck and land clients.
Althouse hasn't worked a fucking day in 45 years and she's still bitching.
Shouting Thomas said...
Althouse hasn't worked a fucking day in 45 years and she's still bitching.
Like MM said, I'm likely of your generation and have participated on this blog for years. I disagree with many posters, I ignore a short list, but I try not to be uncivil in whatever I write.
You are out of line...
If you are that unhappy with Althouse, just go away and spend your time more productively. It's not good for your stress level and your health.
There is no real discussion on the comments sections of NY Times articles.
Because at the NY Times, only paid subscribers can post comments.
Since the overwhelming majority of their paid subscribers are liberals, the comments sections are invariably a liberal echo chamber.
" I can't wait to see what people say in the comments"
Careful what you ask for.
"...to get to that child whom she rewards with a smile..."
How magnanimous. Like giving a seal a fish.
I am Laslo.
You are out of line...
My stress levels are fine.
Althouse is a lazy ass who has done nothing for 45 years but milk a sinecure, become the Bishop of Butt Fucking, and bitch that already rich, overfed, spoiled white women should get more stuff.
Saying this makes my stress levels go down. Ridiculing a preposterous poser like Althouse is fun.
I'm not even getting into all the years she tolerated Crack so that she would have a token angry nigger so that she could run her "My son's just like a nigger cause he's gay" number.
This woman is a pro at grabbing everything she can get her hands on by any means possible... as long as it doesn't involve work.
Absolutely stereotypical lazy ass white woman.
These women can turn the World on with their smiles!
They can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile!
They're gonna make it after all!
(toss hats in air)
I am Laslo.
They can have all the freedom they want if they are out of business. Would you hire this law firm?
"Sorry, I'm picking my kid up from soccer. Can we meet at the Burger King and have our meeting there?"
How about, I go with the law firm that puts my case above sharing TV time with junior?
"Traditionally, most American family men were stay-at-home dads."
Of course those were mostly farmers but the small town GP was also a very famous model of professional life. I had a stay-at-home wife but my office and hospital were 10 minutes from the house and I spent 40 years that way. Now that I am retired I drive into LA two or three times a week and it is a pain.
Thomas, I used to read your comments. Now I scroll right by.
Thomas,
Tomorrow morning, don't piss in your cornflakes. You'd be surprised what a difference that will make in your day.
To paraphrase: "The firm lacks the professionalism or dedication of staff witnessed in the traditional law firm, and thus has instead focused on becoming a low-cost provider by renting office space so that they can compete not on a superior service or excellent outcomes - but instead on being cheaper than the alternative."
I need a word for that feeling of annoyance that comes from having to waste time jumping over pointless, abusive comments.
Ann Althouse said...
The truth is that families work much better with a stay-at-home parent, especially if the working parent wants to have a high-power, demanding career.
What is meant by "high-power"? It's one of those bullshit words that make people in certain professions feel good about themselves and their choices, and better than most everybody else.
They have no power. Most of them are cowering toadies. They are usually fucking jerks.
It's been a while since I kept on scrolling when I saw a handle (Crack, I think). Now another one appears. Aggravates the carpel tunnel, but salves the mind. Tradeoffs.
My wife stayed home with the kids for 10 years and drank herself silly within the first four.
It could be because she's married to me. But that's what happened...
Today she works and drinks responsibly.
Crack was here, all you fine bored, indifferent gentlemen, to establish Althouse's son's nigger credentials.
He wasn't a troll. He was the centerpiece of her strategy.
Courtiers kissing ass always feign that bored indifference. Althouse is the Bishop of Butt Fucking. Obeisance is an occupational necessity.
I worked for smarter, tougher lawyers than you assholes. You'll have to come up with something better.
Shouting Thomas said...
...try to get the chivalry gland running in the men, and demand more.
You're being an asshole to the good professor.
But your statement above is not without merit. Many men have lived it.
I think there was a post a few weeks ago about and increase in suicide for men in their 40's. My wife has a cousin whose favorite saying is "Oh, the relief death will bring!"
He uses it to good comedic effect.
If you express and defend your opinion in the human resources sponsored required annual awareness raising meetings, you feel better in addition to being disinvited to future meetings.
That's what tolerance is all about.
I need a word that means: the feeling of annoyance and loss that comes from reading all the way to the end of a NYT article with one thought foremost in your head...
Blueballs
Like MM said, I'm likely of your generation and have participated on this blog for years. I disagree with many posters, I ignore a short list, but I try not to be uncivil in whatever I write.
You are out of line...
Sleep deprived?
Kudos to those energetic people who begin startup businesses.
Children need a relatively unstressed adult, who is there at such defining moments during the day as breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime. Children should not feel that they are being ‘fitted into’ time slots.
Content Interuptus
Why use a firm like that? It is likely to be cheaper, maybe a lot cheaper. And, not everything is that critical, from a legal point of view, that you need someone there, right now.
I have moved back and forth between the two models. Now, I am working in my basement, partially retired. Which is fine with me. Before that, I was working for a larger regional firm. At that firm, the best attorneys were very, very good. But, there were a lot of attorneys who were not, and who skated on the firm's reputation. And, you really don't want to send your patent work to a general practice firm. Working with a guy the other day who thought he was all that, associate in a big firm. And, I wanted to tell him that it usually takes 5 years, at least, to be marginally competent, to not be completely dangerous, and that was where he was. Barely. I have no doubt that he charges more than I do, with over 20 fewer years of experience.
Still, I wonder sometimes how big firms stay in business, with their high overhead, and high fees. And, the reality that a lot of what they do is overworked. Maybe it is just patent work, but I see more and more of such moving to virtual practices, and/or (illegally) moving offshore (most typically, to India).
"somehow celebrated in the NYT with head-slappingly unbelievable puffery"
Somehow, unbelievable: faux surprise, right?
Puffery of all things female is their marketing strategy. That, and catering to the prejudices of the middle-aged lefty Upper West Side school teachers, yoga instructors, and makers of art.
Today she works and drinks responsibly.
I don't know if you were trying to be funny, but I laughed.
Staying home by yourself -- and kids -- is very difficult if you're a very social person. (Most primates are) It might work in the city, where there are many people with whom to establish kid play dates. Out in the country? Yikes.
I hate that the Times designates which comments are their very favorites. That must make the commenters feel very special.
The NYT, which is now a money losing business, loves to write about businesses that don't emphasize making a profit. God forbid, it would write a story about one its own advertisers [that makes enough profit to afford to advertise in the NYT].
In the Martin Scorsese documentary "Public Speaking", writer and raconteur Fran Lebowitz says "once women have babies, they seem so interested in them. If there's a women in the room with her baby,she's looking at that baby. Is that who you want for your lawyer?"
So, it is women, in the majority, who are voyeurs of reality, who dream of living in a romance novel with a toy male figurine. The story has progressed to where the virtual man has been replaced with a sperm depositor, and the selective-child is a unicorn that sometimes appears to be a mule. We live in "secular" times.
She wouldn't have left her old law firm if she were on track to become a partner.
Her story explains the entire "gender pay disparity" hyperbole. Having a child imposes an opportunity cost on the family.
"my readers tend not even to like the NYT in the first place and to skew way more right wing"
I think a lot of us right wing types read Althouse because she is a marker for something we see as objectivity (also a very careful reader of the news). I don't trust the right wing sources (NR, WSJ, Instapundit, Powerline), not because they are wrong-I think they are overwhelmingly correct- but because they are so clearly partisan. They defend things they should not defend.
One reason they can get away with the no-office concept is probably with the tools available on line there is no need for a bulky law library.
Do they pass these savings on to their clients?
Men work 20 hour days 6 and 7 days a week to do the hard work of starting businesses and building a clientele.
Women walk into the place when it's an established milk cow and demand "equality!"
Not to mention free babysitting.
Four words: Scroll Down To Comments.
chillblaine:
But human life is "priceless"...
Well, selectively so, opportunistically so. You have to love the euphemisms, fantasies, and political narratives conceived, birthed, and developed by the political movement that criticized women and men who recognize intrinsic value. All in order to create leverage so that they may pursue accumulation of capital and control.
Ann,
In another thread you called my use of the words gay sex unhinged.
C.S. Lewis wrote a book titled, "The abolition of man" and in it he talks about the word gentleman. At one time its was a descriptive word that meant a man with a coat of arms and property. Even though we had words for good, nice, gentle, etc, some good meaning people changed the word to mean a good man. It was no longer a word with an objective meaning. It became a word about how we felt toward the person.
Now that you read through shouting Thomas messages today, since you've used the word "unhinged" to describe me yesterday, what words are left to describe shouting Thomas today?
This is why we ought to be careful about how we use language. This is why Dinesh Dzousa once told a guy who kept calling him Hitler, "If you keep calling me that, you're going to make Hitler look good."
Today you can't say of Shouting Thomas that he is unhinged, because then it looks like, well, she says that of everyone.
Eric, you kept saying "gay sex marriage." Why did you put sex in there? You seem overly focused on the sex that gay married people might have. I thought you were unwittingly revealing too much. I thought that was worth pointing out.
I choose what to respond to, and it's sure not in order of unhingedness.
As I said, Ann, C.S. Lewis made a valid point in his book.
Your word unhinged wasn't an objective description of what I write, it was how you felt about what I wrote.
If anyone was unwittingly revealing too much, it was you.
Had I known that gays having sex was going to cause Meade to have to break out the smelling salts, I'd have turned it into rated PG talk for you, as I do my children.
I figured we were all adults here and didn't have to use euphimisms.
Shouting Thomas apparently needs to have his meds adjusted. There was a time when he made lucid comments. Not today for sure.
The button you click to take you to comments that you know you'll hate is the "ircon" or "irkon." It's a Sniglet! -CP
The Bishop of Butt Fucking speaks: "You seem overly focused on the sex that gay married people might have."
Why, Jesus Christ, why would anybody focus on the behavior that ignited the AIDS epidemic and caused 10s of millions of deaths? I mean, you'd think that people had a clue that butt fucking kills!
You see, fools, you have the unseemly tendency to notice what the Bishop of Butt Fucking prefers remain unmentionable. Such things must not be spoken in the Religion of Butt Fucking.
And, besides, the Bishop has a plan to domesticate the gay boys. They're gonna get married and cease fucking anybody who drops their pants on the piers.
ST, you're wide of the mark. I abound in your sense, but she eats it up, what you are dishing. This is not how you cut her to pieces. When gutting a fish, why apostrophize the fish?
You'll know you're on the mark when she comes back with the low blows like the castrating bitch she is. Then you go in for the knockout, and she actually shuts up. Joyful stuff. Look at the bright side, she'll be dead in five years, she promised.
By the way, you spelled "faggot" wrong.
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