In the beginning there was the man. And the man said Get a Job. And I said, Okay.
And after five years in a buttoned-up shirt, I started to cry. In the end, it wasn’t the hours that got me. It wasn’t the never-ending angst. It wasn’t even management’s slurry being forced down my throat on the daily. It was the futility.
We’d lost a case. My client was going to become street homeless and there was nothing I could do about it. Sure, we can appeal, I said, and I reassured him that it would all be okay. But I knew it wouldn’t. We were destined to fail. The law was clear and we had a hand full of nothing.
And, as I sat sketching out the appeal in my head, I realised that I couldn’t play through the charade again. I couldn’t dignify this atrocity with words. The appeal would be a pantomime. We would exchange reams of paper with cute technical arguments. We would sit in courtrooms full of white Oxbridge boys and we’d all try to show how clever we were. We would generate thousands for the firm’s shareholders in the process and, in my bosses’ eyes, the whole thing would be a great success.
And, at the end of it all, my pal would still be on the street and we would wave goodbye. Nothing more we can do, sorry.
And he would put it better than any of us : It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s disgusting.
And I would tell him that I agreed. That it wasn’t fair. That it sucked.
But them’s the rules honey and I’ve got billables to hit…
And it was then that I cried.
I can’t do it anymore. I can’t work. I can’t think. I can’t keep pretending that this is alright. I have so much to give. I have love for all these people who rely on me. Why can’t I just use my energy to help them? Why can’t we just call out the blatant injustices for what they are? Why can’t we just take the land and the money and the dignity that has been stolen from us? Why do I have to play out the same argument again and again with the same people who know nothing but the smell of the shit coming out of their mouths?
I know exactly why. Everyone needs to justify their own existence. Everyone needs to feel important and useful. And the culmination of however many years of brainwashing has led us all to the conclusion that if you’re not gainfully employed or economically productive, you’re ain’t nothing. And if you’re a lawyer fighting the good fight, well, you’re definitely something. You can rest easy at night…
I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have money. And I felt an enormous guilt that I would be abandoning so many people who relied on me. But I also knew that, even if I won every single case I ever fought, I couldn’t turn the ship around from within and that I’d likely destroy myself if I kept trying.
I needed out.
I spoke with my parents. I spoke with my best friend. I walked the weekend away and, Monday morning, I asked my supervisor if she had five minutes for a chat…
I handed over my cases to my colleagues and, one notice period later, here I am. Day One of freedom. Still no plan. No sense of taste or smell either, but that’s another story…
I have a lot of thinking to do. I’ve paid up my last month’s rent. I’ve got enough cash to tide me over for a couple of months. I’ve got nothing holding me anywhere.
And for some reason, I’m not worried about a thing. I, who worry about everything, who have lived my life in fear of failure, who have spent so long trying to meet the expectations of others, feel no urge, no angst, no pressure.
And, perhaps most strangely of all, I feel no ambition to do anything.
To be clear, me leaving my job as a humanitarian lawyer is not just defeatism. It is the design of the system. In English Law, Parliament is supreme. It can make any law it desires. The lawyers can argue about what the words mean, but Parliament’s will is God. And in the last decade, it has made its views on the homeless abundantly clear. The lawyers can tinker with the cogs (and this is brilliant, vital work), but from within the legal system, you can’t dismantle and rebuild wholesale. And that is what is required. You can argue that the Government has read the rules wrong, you can argue that the secondary legislation is wrong (the rules written by ministers, not Parliament) and you can make things a lot better for a lot of people, but, to do so, you have to be willing to operate within a monster. I respect those who can, but I reached a point where I could not do so anymore. I couldn’t keep a cool head and listen to rich people justify the atrocities of our State and landlords. It is barbarism dressed up in logic and rhetoric. I know I will do more good somewhere where I can scream and shout and say it how it is.
Where next? I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
Part of me suspects the question itself is flawed. Why have I got to go anywhere…? I too am a chimp of the Earth.