Thursday, August 6, 2009

The TET offensive

Well it's official, I have become one of the many victims of these 'tough economic times'. Two weeks ago we arrived in Nelson (the NZ version) and I haven't been able to find work. Maybe I'm being too selective, or have become soft in my old age and can no longer hit the streets and sell myself. At this point I think the far more likely explanation is that people around here find it creepy when a lawyer applies to work pruning apple trees. I'm getting so frustrated that I am going to print out a CV which leaves out the fact that I am a lawyer entirely and just pretends that the last 5 years of my life didn't happen.. this might of course lead to an awkward question about what I've been doing over that time, but I've pretty good at making stuff up. Right now the leading candidates are: Trapped down a well, or doing an internship for The Crocodile Hunter. As for the last year since he died of course I've just been in mourning so I thought it inappropriate to search for work. That should do just fine.

Luckily however we travel as a duo and the other half, most certainly the better half at job hunting, has already landed three jobs. Tenny is currently employed as a gingerbread maker, Italian cafe worker, and was shortly on the list for a home care business before she called them to quit because she already had two other jobs. I tried to convince her to give me the gingerbread job, but apparently things don't work that way. weird.

To drown my sorrows today I went to the courthouse to check out the differences, and have now spiraled myself into a full scale crisis about my profession. Why do any of us practice law in the big city?? It is insanity.. Today I went to the courthouse where I found two courtrooms, one of which was closed, the other held what appeared to be a fraud trial. That's it.. in a city of 60,000, that's all there was going on. No lists containing hundreds of drug charges or courtrooms where three trials have been booked for the same day assuming that 2 of the 3 will collapse for one reason or another. And no civil trials at all, which I guess isn't too much of a surprise when you find out that there is no personal injury law in New Zealand. Just this weird thing called the ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) which covers everyone who gets injured, no matter what the circumstance. Now I'm not saying this is a good thing, in fact I'd wager that the system is probably a disaster to work through, but it all just makes me wonder why I work in such an overworked, underfunded, the only way out of this is to sue type of system. Just taking away the ability for people to 'believe' they can win something by suing someone else is a huge plus if you ask me. From my experience for every 1 person that does sue someone back home there are probably 5 who believe they should sue that person and that the probable result will be the destruction of the government and the beginning of a new world order where you can park your campervan anywhere.

But this is why I need to find work.. so I'll stop complaining about everything.

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