The week that was what it was
Friday, May 14, 2010 at 04:44PM 
I dream of Paris. Photo Jennifer Weber 2010Here at IHATH we do not shy away from sensitive subject matter … if the subject matters.
Should it become necessary to advance hip-deep into the muddy, roiling waters of social and cultural consciousness, we do so … without flinching.
Dressed in stylish, feminine, modest, flattering waders to keep our pedicure tidy … of course.
The result may or may not be politically correct.
You've been warned.
This was a week I will soon forget … I hope.
It started on Tuesday (not to be confused with TRUEsday) with the deposition of a young "minority" male in a most unfortunate South Carolina town.
His pain level is a seven.
Geographic coordinates aren't necessary. Just envision a place where generations of welfare recipients have existed in poverty-level conditions and all that goes along with that scenario, and you'll get the depressing picture.
This town's motto could be Where the entitlement mentality reigns supreme and if you're not black, you're a racist. Obama 2012.
(On the positive side, there's a new billboard visible as you're on your way out of town headed back toward Columbia. It features a giant photo of MLK and this little-known factoid: "Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican!")
This is incendiary because you may rest assured that ninety-nine percent of the residents of this southern suburban netherworld voted for The One … He Who Walks on Boiling Water and Prances on Radioactive Shards of Glass Without Injury Because He Is Divine … none other than B. Hussein Obama.
And they did so for one reason only: because he's black.
Pardon me while I retch.
(Kudos to RagingElephants for installing that particular bit of billboard business, and for their demonstrated willingness to take the heat that's sure to ensue … you can read about the precedent for said impending political pressure here.)
So anyway, the plaintiff/deponent has sued his ex-employer because he picked up something heavyish at work a year or so ago and a pain shot down his right leg.
One pain. One time.
Now his back hurts. On a scale of one to ten, one being no pain at all and ten being excruciating, he claims his pain level is a consistent seven.
He was three points off excruciating and yet he was beyond calm and composed. He was relaxed, lucid, and dispassionate as he slumped in his chair, speaking in a barely audible voice designed to convey contempt.
Come to think of it, the five pounds of dreads bunched into a massive scary ponytail may be the source of his back pain.
I was rudely upbraided.
According to his sworn testimony, our plaintiff (age 32) spends his days taking pain meds and watching TV. His girlfriend has to tie his shoes.
Don't dare look at me like that. No, I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on television, but if you'd been in the room with this person you'd be convinced -- as I am -- that he was lying.
I am a 53-year-old woman. I have been gainfully employed since the age of 15. By the time I was barely 32 I had made four trips to the delivery room ... to bear children for the man to whom I was and am married.
(And yes ... I know how to spell his name. I even know his Social Security number and where he's ticklish and where he hides the M&Ms.)
Believe me: I live with more back and leg pain in one day than this able-bodied young man experiences in a month of Sundays, and yet I work every day … unmedicated.
The deponent's lawyer was a real specimen too. He told his client -- on the record! -- that the defense lawyer's questions were "meaningless" but instructed him to "go ahead and answer them anyway."
(See, that's how it works. If you sue somebody, be prepared to answer some questions … and be advised that counsel for the party you've sued can ask you anything they want.)
At the conclusion of the depo, I asked the perjured injured suit-bringing party to wait so that I could verify the spelling of a name he'd mumbled mentioned.
Turns out he couldn't help me spell the name … of the mother of his 13-year-old son.
Of course, he's never even lived with said female, much less been married to her. And it all happened a long time ago. Maybe that explains it.
Why sweat the details of tenuous familial connections when there's TV to watch and narcotic pain meds to ingest and a shoelace-tying girlfriend to entertain?
When I sort of insisted that I really needed to know the proper spelling of the woman's name so that the record would be accurate, I was rudely upbraided … by the plaintiff's (white) lawyer.
I'm getting good at Ebonics.
In a voice that would wake the living, Mister Attorney "Man" lashed out at me: "He can't spell the name, OKAY? So WHAT? It doesn't MATTER!"
That's what you call moronic.
His client had testified under oath, the same as if we had been in a court of law, before a judge.
What he said -- and how it is spelled -- matters.
If it doesn't, I'm going to sit in the shade and read poetry for the rest of my life. Occasionally I shall dream of Paris and I may spot Johnny Depp strolling on the Champs Elysees.
Keep the Diet Coke coming but don't wake me.
You may be thinking at this point, good grief Jenny, it was one deposition, you do this all the time, I thought you were a pro, it's not like it's your first rodeo, why did you let this one get under your skin? Shake it off already!
Only problem is, virtually identical little pseudo-dramas played out the next day … and the next … in other towns, in different conference rooms.
Wednesday's case was about a drunken party attended by hundreds, held out in the "screet" (I'm getting good at Ebonics … I guess that's a plus) in a particular Columbia neighborhood, in which an inebriated black male got behind the wheel of his pickup truck and put it in reverse and sort of backed up into a bevy of pregnant females, knocking one of them down and putting a little mark on her leg.
(The baby was fine. He's one year old now and expecting a little brother or sister. Same mother, different fathers. I'm not making this up.)
All those involved in the potentially tragic incident were underage … as in, way south of 21. It happened at about two o'clock in the morning.
There were small children present.
The next plaintiff was a very young black woman who has a three-year-old by her babydaddy, which fine upstanding gentleman lives in a distant state. She was in a fender-bender while pregnant with the child, who was born perfectly normal and is thriving.
Not for the likes of me.
At least that one has a full-time job. And she seemed like a nice girl.
But I have heard about his/her babydaddy and babymama and she stay at her mom house when she pregnant and she 21 and pregnant for the third time now and no, none of us ain't never been married and no, we don't work and he like to talk horrible trash to all the females, you know, and I'm not down with that crowd like she be and he was drunk and staggering and my truck's got 26-inch rims and that's why my sister baby like to ride in it and blah, blah, blah, blah until I'm practically sick with it.
Wait! It gets better.
I have to listen to it all again. I'm obliged to relive it twice while typing and proofreading verbatim transcripts of the proceedings.
And for the coup de grace? None of the attorneys for any of these plaintiffs could "afford" to order copies of the transcripts. They're hoping to settle their pathetic cases before incurring that inconvenient expense.
(Hint: that's how court reporters make money … by selling copies of the transcript. Now I'm obliged to do the same amount of work for considerably less pay.)
Oh, sure … every now and then you take a hit when the copy attorney won't play ball. But four times in a row? An entire week of testimony … at least 200 pages … for forty percent less money per page than I'd normally earn?
It gives one pause.
To top it all off … this is like the whipped cream, y'all … the third and last of these depos I've described was held on Thursday at an extremely prestigious law firm in downtown Columbia.
Let's just say that their monthly budget for courtesies such as coffee and soft drinks probably exceeds my house payment. Not to mention what their office space costs.
I have worked jobs at this law firm many times over the years. They occupy several upper floors of a beautiful high-rise building. The view is spectacular.
Another nice touch is, they validate the ticket that the machine spits out when you enter the attached parking garage.
Except yesterday they wouldn't … not for the likes of me, anyway.
You see, neither of the two lawyers involved in the fender-bender case at issue actually work for this firm; they had simply been granted permission to use a conference room for a couple of hours.
And because the proceedings weren't for one of "their" lawyers, I was told by the destination firm's receptionist that she wouldn't be able to validate my parking ticket. With her tone she thanked me sweetly for going away quietly and not making a fuss.
So, after a week of many miles driven and many hours sat and much minority reporting and no copies sold, I was forced to write a check for $2.25.
To get out of the parking garage.
Generally done dirty by white folks.
Because the garage doesn't have a machine to read a debit card. And of course, as has been amply demonstrated, I rarely carry cash.
So here's how it shakes out: there are those who don't work and who attend all-night drunken parties and who produce multiple children outside the bonds of matrimony and who collect welfare checks and unemployment benefits and who sue employers and anyone who bumps into them, however slightly.
That's the life of at least some "minorities" in America … those who, according to progressives, are constantly beaten down, held back, denied opportunities, and generally done dirty by white folks.
Those who are supposedly not capable of racism because they don't have enough "power."
And then there's me ... working the job, grubbing around for $2.25 to pay for parking because the lawyer who retained me to report his depo works at a different firm than the one where the depo was held.
On the way home yesterday, rather tired and a bit discouraged, mulling all of the above in my aching brain, I was waiting at a traffic light when my eyes focused on this sentiment, marching in white decal letters across the heavily-tinted back window of a black SUV:
It Is What It Is.
Yep. I reckon so.
Break over! Back to work.
Reader Comments (6)
Now THAT was a week very much deserving of a rant!
On the bright side, the week's finally over. :) On the downside, these problems aren't going away. You will still have to deal with cases like these, and I still have to worry about the day I find myself in a fender bender with a certain segment of society who will use the opportunity to take from me all that he/she can in a court of law. Sigh.
I once wrote a blog post about entitlement being "the silent killer." Seems that it isn't so silent anymore! It's loud and proud and already shouting "Vote Obama in 2012."
Kev, ain't it the truth? But my friend, if you cause a fender-bender you're going to have to worry (and probably lawyer up) no matter what the race of your "victim." I've spent equally long, arduous, frustrating days listening to rich white folks whine because their 1.5 million-dollar mansion sits at a different angle on their lot than they had anticipated when they commissioned the architect and the builder.
And so they're suing the architect and the builder.
Entitlement is a silent killer indeed.
What a terrible week for you. I know exactly where you are coming from. I worked at a prestigious law firm in Memphis years ago and got close to several court reporters. I know what they go through. They were always glad to get a call from us because they knew they would get their money, probably get orders for several copies, have decent working conditions, and have reasonable attorneys to work with.
The welfare state has grown to a size that is killing our country.
One generation breeds another generation of welfare babies who have never known relatives who WORK for a living, it is unknown to them.
Grrrr - I don't think I could handle a week of that. I'm glad it's over and I hope the next week isn't filled with more of the same.
Debbie, you've reminded me of how wonderful MOST law firms are to visit ... I myself was a legal assistant for many years and for the most part my employers made it a high priority to timely pay court reporters. I really like my job but in a week like this, it seems to point up all that's wrong with our ultra-litigious society. I sense that our stalled economy is having an impact on the copies attorneys will order. I hope it doesn't get any worse. And your observation that an entire generation will grow up not watching their role models work for a living is simply terrifying.
Mari, it was a tough go. I'm glad it's over and like you I'm hoping next week is better! It could hardly be worse.
OH..I cannot tell you how many times a week I say "it is what it is". Sometimes that's all you can say before just moving on.