Dr T Strikes Back

This evening, I confronted a fellow who made a rude gesture behind my friend's back.

Full disclosure: the fellow might have had cause to make a gesture.  After all, he came up to my friend and me and said "Excuse me, I'm from out of town..." and my friend immediately cut him off and said "Sorry, we're not giving you any change."  In other words, "Go away, homeless guy."

It turns out he wasn't homeless.  He was just looking for directions.  So much for polite Torontonians.  (Further disclosure: the friend in question is a long-time Canadian resident, but actually an American citizen.)

He did look scruffy.  But he was clean.  I personally wouldn't have jumped to the conclusion that he was asking for change.  Then again, he did start off the conversation with a phrase that is usually followed by "I'm trying to get home and I have no money.  Can you help me out?"  I've heard this line many times here in TO.

We gave him directions (to the bar across the street).  He stalked over to the bar and stood outside with a few other chaps, talking, and gesturing in our direction.  He was clearly ticked off that he had been mistaken for a homeless guy.  My friend (the American) insisted that we move on, her to her home around the corner and me to my car just up the street.  She thought that we were about to be attacked by this guy.  What can I say?  She's from the South, where they have blood feuds.

As I turned to walk to my car, I noticed the fellow flip my friend the bird.  More accurately, he flipped my friend's departing back the bird.  In fact, my friend may have already turned the corner and may no longer have even been in view.

Now that is just rude.

If you are going to flip someone off, do it directly.  Look that person in the eye and give them the Trudeau Salute.

It is cowardly to salute someone behind their back.  It is particularly cowardly when that person is a woman, walking alone and you are a guy standing with a bunch of other guys.  Now that is just rude, cowardly, and ungentlemanly.  Unconscionable, even.  I had to take action.

I dashed across the street and strode up to this fellow and said, "Hey Buddy.  Hey Mr. Big Man, standing there with your friends.  What a brave guy you are, flipping off a woman behind her back, all alone, while you stand here with your friends.  What kind of behaviour is that?"

Oh, I was on.  I went in for the kill shot.

"You know what?  You got a problem, don't stand here with your friends and make rude gestures.  You be direct...So...uh...."

I was stuck.  I didn't want to touch the issue of my friend assuming that he was homeless.  I could understand why he might be a bit offended by that.  All I had was "say it directly", but my friend was already long gone.  This is the best I could come up with:

"So, uh, if you got something to say to my friend, you tell me and I'll pass the message along."

Crash.  And. Burn.

Awkward.

But my speech must have been somewhat effective because the other guys immediately said, "Hey, he's not OUR friend.  We don't even know him."  So I'll take a partial victory.  At least I seemed to scare the other guys.

Now this little "conversation" brought to mind a few other incidents in which I didn't quite get the comeback right.  Because I believe in using my embarrassment to the greater good of all, I will share a few of these incidents with you.  It will be probably be clear why I ultimately decided that a career in litigation, where one must always think on one's feet, was not quite for me.

In which Dr. T almost triggers a police chase through the street of Toronto

You know how you can live somewhere for years and not ever notice that it is illegal to make a right-hand turn at a particular intersection between 4pm and 6pm, Mondays to Fridays?  And then one day, you notice the sign.  You know...after the cop pulls you over.

Only, in my case, not only did I not notice the sign, I wasn't sure that the cop was pulling me over.  There were several cars already pulled over.  There wasn't really room for me to pull over.  I didn't think I did anything wrong.  So I kept driving.  This apparently made the cop very angry.

As I looked in my rear view mirror, I could see the cop, one hand on his pistol (seriously!), the other hand angrily gesturing for me to PULL OVER.

So I put my down coffee and cookie, and pulled my car to the side of the road.

The cop strode over to my window.  I rolled it down and he leaned down and snarled, "Is there any reason why you do NOT pull over when a uniformed officer tells you to?!"

In retrospect, the correct answer here was probably "No, sir.  I'm sorry, sir."

Instead, I snapped back, "Yeah.  When the cop makes an ambiguous gesture and it is not clear to me that I'm the one who is supposed to stop, yeah, in that case, I might just keep going."

Silence.

In that brief moment of quiet, I remembered that I did not have my insurance papers with me.  They were on my desk at home, where they had been for about 4 weeks.  And one of my tail lights was out.  Awkward.

I then began to back pedal and be appropriately deferential.  And you know?  He didn't ticket me for not having my insurance papers and for having a broken tail light.  The illegal right turn, on the other hand, cost me a hefty fine and 2 demerit points.

In which Dr. T takes on an entire hockey team...


I used to play hockey, and I had the good fortune to play on a number of very good teams.  My team made it to the play-offs regularly, both in regular season play and in tournament play.  One year, we finished a tournament in Pittsburgh (we were runners-up, i.e., we lost in the finals), drove like mad back to Toronto, and hit the ice for our league's final.  Needless to say, I was tired at the end of that game.  Tired and frustrated.

We lost the league final game.  The other team destroyed us.  Our team was exhausted from the tournament and we had a short bench.  Now, I don't mind losing to a good team after a fair game.  But I hate cheap and unsportsmanlike play.  And this other team was dirty and mean.


Toward the end of the game, with the other team ahead by four or five goals, I started getting flak from one of their players, #7.  Number 7 hit me from behind twice while the referee's back was turned.  I was not near any of the nets, nor was I near the puck.  This was not incidental contact.  This player deliberately knocked me off my feet from behind.  Twice.


This ticked me off enormously.  Hitting from behind is one of the dirtiest, cheapest plays in hockey, and it is dangerous.  I was already annoyed that this team continued to trounce our team when it was clear that we were beaten, dejected, and exhausted.  And then to be hit from behind, twice, in the last minutes of the game!  Well, steam was coming out of my ears.


When the game mercifully ended, we lined up for the mandatory post-game handshake.  Both teams then headed to their own benches to retrieve water bottles, sticks, and the like.  Only I did not head to my bench.  I skated half-way to the other team's bench and then yelled, "Hey, Number 7!"

Number 7 turned around and looked at me.  She was standing in the middle of her teammates.  My team was slinking off the ice with their tails between their legs.

"Hey, Number 7!  You know what?  You're a cheap player!"

Number 7 looked me up and down, and then said, "Yeah?  What are you going to do about it?"  Her teammates laughed.  Menacingly.

What was I going to do about it?  Clearly, I had not thought the matter through.  The best I could come up with was, "I'm going to tell you that you are cheap player and then you can go home and think about that!"


And then I skated away as fast as I could, with my tail very firmly between my legs.

Worst. Comeback. Ever.

In which Dr. T is almost thrown in jail for contempt of court...


While in law school, I worked at our community legal aid clinic.  I carried mostly criminal files and I actually conducted a number of trials.  My worst trial experience ever came in a case involving an incredibly annoying client and an incredibly annoyed judge.

My client insisted on a trial.  Essentially, he got caught because he was stupid.  Try as I might to explain that there is no Charter protection against stupidity, he insisted that his Charter rights were violated.  And so I had the misfortune of having to make a weak Charter case before a judge who was very irked to see a young, punk-ass lawyer clutter up his courtroom with constitutional challenges.

Oh, this judge punished me for bringing the matter to trial.  Everything I said was wrong.  The judge kept cutting in on me while I questioned witnesses, snapping at me that I was not going to win this argument or that argument, that I should be more prepared, etc etc.  Meanwhile, the client kept creeping up to me to tug on my sleeve and whisper "ask him about this thing..." or "tell the judge about that other thing...".  I'm sure that the judge was not amused when I had to stop my questioning to hiss at my own client, "Would you sit back down and shut up!"

One of the key pieces of evidence in the trial was a drill.  Without that drill, the Crown had no case.  Our strategy was to argue that the drill had been obtained illegally because it was only found as a result of a breach of my client's Charter rights; as such, the drill should be excluded from evidence.  In Canada, we call this "derivative evidence".  In the US, it is called (more dramatically) "fruit of the poison tree".

At a certain point, the judge cut in on my line of questioning and said, "Ms. M, how do you propose to exclude the drill from this trial?"

"Well, your Honour, we suggest that the drill is derivative evidence...."

"Ms. M!" snapped His Honour,  "I have been on the Bench for twenty-five years, and I still do not understand derivative evidence!  Do you think that YOU could explain it to ME?"  He glared down at me from the bench.  His glasses were perched at the tip of his nose so that he could literally look down his nose at me.  "Well?"

In retrospect, I think that the correct answer would probably be something like, "I'm happy to move on, Your Honour."

Ah, but I was a naive, terrified little kitten of a lawyer.  So I thought I would help the judge to understand derivative evidence.  My hands shaking, I lifted a stack of papers and croaked, "Well, Your Honour, I have a copy of The Queen and Stillman here, sir, and I think it is very helpful to understanding this doctrine..."

"I don't want your case law!"  The judge waved his hand dismissively at me.  "Move on!"

Needless to say, we lost the trial.  But you know what?  We won on appeal.  In fact, when the Crown responsible for the appeal reviewed the trial transcript, he decided not to contest the appeal.  He said that it was clear that the judge was biased and that I was prevented from making my legal argument.  I was shocked since I didn't think we actually had a legal argument to make.  But I'll take my victories wherever I can get them.

It only goes to show that she who laughs on appeal, laughs best.  Take that, Judge R.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.  I'm going to appeal and you can go home and think about it.

Aw rats.  I still can't get that riposte...

Are YOU necessary?

I recently read a terrific article by Tim Kreider called "The Busy Trap".  In it, Kreider talks about how everyone seems busy these days.  People -- all people, including over-scheduled kids -- are trapped in a "hysteria" (his word, not mine) surrounding the need to be busy.  We feel guilty, Kreider, suggests when we are NOT busy, when we actively choose to do something lazy or not strictly necessary.  Kreider argues that our busyness is a way of finding meaning in our life; our lives cannot be meaningless or empty if we are busy, right?


Kreider makes a great case for the lazy ambitious person.  But that is a subject for another blog entry.  This post is about a comment that is really obiter dicta in the article as a whole.  Embedded within Kreider's article is the observation that many of us associate our value as a person with what we do for a living.  It's a core part of our identity.  For example, what we do is often the starting point in many conversations: "So, what do you do?"  [Note: I've tried answering "as little as possible", but most people don't get the joke.  After all, shouldn't people be trying to do as much as possible?]  


We've narrowed our identities down to this one dimension, our work.  This is problematic for many reasons, not the least of which is Kreider's observation that many of us have jobs that don't really matter any more, especially in the world of intelligent devices, computers, and robotics.  What happens to our identity when our job doesn't have some tangible societal benefit?  Kreider suggests that we deal with this issue by becoming busy:

I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.  

Kreider goes on to make the following statement, which I have now dubbed "The Kreider Test of Occupational Necessity":

"More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary." 

So...is YOUR job necessary?  And if your job fails the Kreider test (we'll broaden the test to allow for jobs done by any animal in a Richard Scarry book), are YOU necessary?


I can't answer the second question for you.  I can tell you that I think you are necessary and valuable, but really, you have to claim this truth for yourself.  I can, however, help you determine if your job is necessary.  I dug out my old Richard Scarry books and investigated what jobs are "necessary", according to the Kreider Test of Occupational Necessity (KTON).  I present my findings below.  I must warn you: they may shock you.


Let's start with some of the basics.  You won't be surprised to learn that doctors, dentists, policemen, firemen, farmers, and teachers are all "necessary" according to the KTON:

My Uncle used to say, "Farming is everyone's bread and butter." 

A teacher.  Hooray! I'm necessary!

Nurses: RESPECT.  

Some nurses tell me that all doctors are pigs.

Those are some serious teeth, Dr. Walrus.  I hope you floss.

Something tells me that these firemen won't be making the annual Firemen's Calendar.

Who needs police officers when you have sheriffs who are bears?

The trades (defined broadly) are also well-represented:

Here's a carpenter to build your house...

...and a house painter to paint it.

And here's a milk bunny to bring milk right to your front door.  Awesome, right?

Now at this stage, some of you may be getting restless.  Sure, we need medical people and people to grow food and people to teach stuff.  But where are the people who know how to manage all these other people's money?  Where are the bankers?  The traders?  Well, there are some business creatures...

My Opa owned a little store just like this lion.  But this lion has more hair than my Opa did.

Here's a tiny little clerk working away on a big old typewriter.  

But, unfortunately, none of them look like they work on Bay Street.  Cheer up, Bankers, Traders, Money Managers!  It turns out that lawyers, engineers, accountants, and scholars (i.e., people who are too important to be called "teachers") haven't made the cut either.  But musicians are on the "Necessary" list.  Ouch!  That's got to be a blow to some Bay Street egos...

This Jazz Rabbit does NOT play in a Bay Street Garage Band.

Who else is Necessary, according to the KTON?  Let's have a look....

Hooray, says the Truck Driver.  "I'm Necessary!"

Mechanics are necessary.  Especially if you drive American cars.

And the Bankers jealously say, "Ah Flying Foxes!  Why are pilots Necessary when we are not?"

Librarians take us places....in our imagination...

I love Croco-Bread.  It's reptilicious.

Oh my Lord, please don't let Chef Bunny be frying up some rabbit...

I'm always a bit suspicious of cats with fishing rods.

Ah, people that make things "GO" and people that provide food for our tummies are all Necessary.  Thank goodness!  I'd hate to think that bakers do not know how important they really are to our well-being.  Have you hugged a baker lately?  

Who else is on the KTON?  

Thank goodness!! John Wayne is Necessary!

You do NOT want to get into a bar fight with a bear who has been at sea for 6 months...

So....cowboys and sailors make the cut, but people in IT don't?  What about that guy who invented Facebook?  How does this society shaped by KTON govern itself?  Where are the politicians, policy makers, economists, and lobbyists?  These people aren't Necessary.  But Artists and Crafts creatures sure are!  It makes sense, really.  Some people feed our bodies, while others feed our souls...

This is a Flamingo Dancer.  Get it?  Flamingo/Flamenco?  Heh heh.

Glass blowers made the cut.  And they don't even work on Bay Street!

We need house painters, but also Artist painters.  Who else will paint pictures of our newly painted houses

Singers drown out the drone of politicians.

You can tell this Fox is a crafts creature by the way he wears his beret.

You know, it strikes me that the KTON is a good ego check.  Many of the jobs that are held by society's so-called elite and its power brokers aren't represented, but the people who take care of us, feed us, shelter us, teach us, carry us around, and enrich our lives are on the list.  It's the latter group of people who are often overlooked, while the former strut around with their position, power, and wealth as though they are God's gift to us.  But as the recent financial crisis and scandal after scandal (e.g., Barclays, Rajat Gupta, Goldman Sachs,the Madoff Brothers, and Enron, to name just a few) show, these wealthy and powerful elite often do not have the public's interest at heart; they serve themselves and only themselves.  With attitudes like that, it's probably a good thing that we keep them off our Necessary list.  After all, to make it on the Necessary list, you should be contributing something to society, not manipulating society and its institutions for your own ends.  I'll take a glass blower over a Barcley's banker any day.