Someone strides into my office and blurts out “What is this? I don’t understand it,” shaking a document in my face. His lack of comprehension must be my fault.
While discussing an ambiguous agreement with another one of my mild-mannered colleagues, he lurches back in his chair and yells “So what if there’s language missing. Everyone knows what we mean.” I can’t recall the “everyone-knows-what-we-mean” explanation ever persuading a client or a jury, but something tells me I ought to nod emphatically in agreement.
I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I’m a lawyer at a top corporate law firm in NYC. Ever since I’ve been at this firm I’ve struggled with cultural issues. It’s an American firm. I’m American. It’s a New York-centric firm. I’m from New York.
The cultural issues I wrestle with are not as subtle as issues of national or metropolitan identity. I wrestle with emotional identity. With few exceptions, everyone around me speaks a foreign emotional language. But like any foreign language, we usually marvel at the elegant inflections and unique sounds before we realize we cannot understand a word being said.
In a group meeting forming part of my interview three years ago, I witnessed a freedom of expression that seduced me. No awkward pauses or three minute cautionary prefaces—everyone chimed in freely with random observations, so much so that they forgot they had directed questions at me. It was suggestive of the liberation I would taste if I joined this firm. Soon I would be able to express enthusiasm without shocking my colleagues. I might even use exclamations!, BOLD ALL CAPs and emoticons ;-)
So I joined the firm.
It never occurred to me my colleagues would be just as uninhibited when exploring other parts of the emotional spectrum, namely anger. Or, what I call “anger,” because therein lies the cultural rub.
I see crass and immature displays of anger; my colleagues see people “taking charge” and “showing interest.” So, until I raise my voice, interrupt others and make my nostrils flare on command, no one will believe I am truly engaged or on top of my game.
Forget the bestseller "Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation"* that was distributed as mandatory reading when I was a junior associate. The books I need now are "Getting Past Rationality: Screaming Your Way to Success" and "Verbally Bitchslapping Your Colleague Into Agreement: The Power of Monosyllabic Epithets." As long as I live in their world, I must speak their language, right?
Actually the American Psychiatric Association doesn’t see it that way. The APA’s efforts to demarcate the norms of emotional expression in American culture mean certain forms of anger constitute “mental illness.”* The offspring of Intermittent Explosion Disorder,* Temper Dysregulation Disorder (TDD), promises to make its way into DSM-V:*
n. A disorder characterized by severe recurrent temper outbursts in response to common stressors. Usage: “Because he suffered from TDD, he lashed out at everyone when he was diagnosed with ED and realized he would never experience a two hour erection without medication.”*
Could it be that most of my colleagues are mentally ill? Possibly, but, gosh, for mentally ill folks they sure generate a lot of revenue and rack up a lot of legal accolades every year. If their temporal lobes, where anger resides, were “cleaned up” (a lobotomy being one form of cleansing), they might not be as successful. Recipes for success are always highly individualized.
At my prior firm, I was accused of being a “guy” at the office. I don’t grab my crotch while speaking or use football analogies, but I don’t sugar coat my criticism either. I don’t soften statements by turning them into questions through a pseudo-English inflection? I say it like it is.
Yet, despite leaving the sugar, spice and everything nice at home, I’m just not angry enough. Anger just isn’t my style. So why the title “Twelve Angry Women” then? It’s hard enough to find twelve senior women at my office, much less twelve angry women.
The original “Twelve Angry Men” (1954) was premised on the frictions and frustrations of twelve male jurors trying to overcome cultural prejudice to reach a consensus. There were no women jurors in the script. Was it unimaginable that women might also get angry in the same context or is it that the writer just couldn’t figure out a single adjective that would capture the emotion of a mixed gender group striving for agreement?
She calls it anger; he calls it enthusiasm; the APA calls it illness. Isn’t it just style? The demands on rationality and analysis implicit in the lawyering process should pave a wide common ground between the genders, pushing objectivity to the fore and emotions—which always exacerbate the gender divide—to the back. Not here. I must be in left field.*
Notes
*William Ury (1991).
*See “When Anger Is an Illness,” Wall Street Journal, D1, March 9, 2010.
*IED was recognized by the psychiatric profession as early as 1980.
*DSM V stands for the fifth edition of the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, expected to be published in 2013. Considered the bible in America for mental disorders, DSM V is also expected to introduce Negativistic Personality Disorder and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo. Sounds like a must read!
*Advertisements for erectile dysfunction (ED) medications warning of erections lasting more than four hours would appear to suggest that erections of shorter duration, say three hours, are perfectly normal.
*Originally written in 1954 by Reginald Rose, the teleplay was made into a film in 1957, starring Henry Fonda and remade in 1997 with Jack Lemmon.
*”Twelve Angry Women” was adapted from the original play by Sherman Sergel in 2004. There were no male jurors in the script.
*“Hey, you’re in left field!” Act I, p. 14, Twelve Angry Men.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Lunch Report: Flying with the Freaks
When I had my lunch today it was -58 degrees F out, yet I was as toasty as can be. Even at 39,000 feet, my client's Gulfstream 450* (not the latest model, but good enough for Penelope) had impeccable heating and surprisingly moist air (maybe I would arrive with that coveted skin condition, dewy skin?). This was my first flight in a private jet and I was predisposed to love it.
Once in my seat, the only one on my side of the aisle, I stretched my limbs to full extension then retracted them into my favorite position, an expansive Indian-style (sorry, are we still allowed to say that?) position.
By two hours after wheels should have been up, the thrill of flying private was fading. As it turns out, private jets are not immune from the same delays and mechanical malfunctions as commercial planes. As mechanics surrounded the plane and poked at it, we all settled into conversations or reading materials.
On a commercial flight, you can depart and arrive and never exchange words with anyone, which is typically what I do (and if you need tips on how to escape conversation with your flightmate, just email me).
Unfortunately, on a private plane, whether host or guest, you cannot avoid some level of conversation with your fellow travelers. As a corporate lawyer, I am generally blessed with an ever ready excuse—the tyranny of work. Being a corporate lawyer means never having to say you’re sorry;* it’s never your fault. It’s work that makes you cancel and retreat into a blissfully solitary cave when you’re not feeling social. But after two hours, even I could not in good faith pretend to be engrossed by the two page document laid out on the table in front of me.
The children traveling with us were far more patient than the adults (of course the adults lacked the assistance of one Spanish-speaking nanny per person to whip out computer games and snacks at the slightest hint of boredom).
We deplaned so the mechanics could fuss more invasively with the plane. Sadly, the terminals for private jets only prolong social obligations. Terminals for private jets are generally small with no shops to visit. They nurture small communities of people with both passengers and flight support staff who can easily remember you. Maybe transitioning from commercial to private flying is how I imagine I would feel if I left NYC to be smothered in the smallness of the suburbs, seeing the same folks over and over.
Eventually we switched to a G-V (G-IVs are so 90s anyway). And we were off.
Lunch—baked chicken and vegetables—was served buffet style with drinks of our choice. Although I usually reach for a white wine in flight (the only time I drink Sutter Home or Turning Leaf, I swear), I was too comfortable to need to anesthetize myself to my surroundings.
Will I really always fly private for now on? Probably not. Private flights lack the "freak" factor I secretly enjoy when traveling amongst hundreds of people I’ll never see again—like the teenager seated next to me with so many body piercings that I was dying to ask her if they hurt when she sneezed but was afraid to speak to her. Or the woman seated next to me on one recent flight who scratched her head obsessively during a three hour flight as I pretended not to notice the scabs she liberated from her scalp throughout the flight. Repulsive? Absolutely, yet also somewhat intriguing.
I might also miss the anonymity of flying commercial. In Up In The Air, George Clooney's character Ryan Bingham claims he travels 320 out of 365 days of the air and happily remains free from attachments and community, traveling with an "empty knapsack," the symbol of his freedom from personal relationships.
Despite his disdain for the communities and close relationships formed at ground level, he unwittingly creates a pseudo-community of dysfunctionality 35,000 feet in the air through his "elite" traveler status which, ironically, ensures name recognition when he checks in at airports and strips him of the privilege of anonymity. I am not there yet so can hold fast to my anonymity, for now.
We complain about them, maliciously and vehemently. We devote substantial television time and internet space to criticizing commercial airlines. Yet, those dreaded commercial flights form a transient bridge to people we will never know—the untouchables for those who fly commercial but the unseeable and unobservable for those who fly private.
I thought flying private would be the ultimate travel privilege but, at least for me, flying with the freaks while retaining some measure of anonymity are much greater privileges (and, well, much cheaper). Oh, my flight is boarding now. Must go.
Notes
*The Gulfstream 450 is a modification of the G-IV, a part of a family of jets produced by Gulfstream Aerospace, a General Dynamics company based in Savannah, Georgia. The G-IV has been superseded by the improved G-V model.
*A modest perversion of Ali MacGraw’s famous line in the 1970 film A Love Story: "Love means never having to say you’re sorry."
Once in my seat, the only one on my side of the aisle, I stretched my limbs to full extension then retracted them into my favorite position, an expansive Indian-style (sorry, are we still allowed to say that?) position.
By two hours after wheels should have been up, the thrill of flying private was fading. As it turns out, private jets are not immune from the same delays and mechanical malfunctions as commercial planes. As mechanics surrounded the plane and poked at it, we all settled into conversations or reading materials.
On a commercial flight, you can depart and arrive and never exchange words with anyone, which is typically what I do (and if you need tips on how to escape conversation with your flightmate, just email me).
Unfortunately, on a private plane, whether host or guest, you cannot avoid some level of conversation with your fellow travelers. As a corporate lawyer, I am generally blessed with an ever ready excuse—the tyranny of work. Being a corporate lawyer means never having to say you’re sorry;* it’s never your fault. It’s work that makes you cancel and retreat into a blissfully solitary cave when you’re not feeling social. But after two hours, even I could not in good faith pretend to be engrossed by the two page document laid out on the table in front of me.
The children traveling with us were far more patient than the adults (of course the adults lacked the assistance of one Spanish-speaking nanny per person to whip out computer games and snacks at the slightest hint of boredom).
We deplaned so the mechanics could fuss more invasively with the plane. Sadly, the terminals for private jets only prolong social obligations. Terminals for private jets are generally small with no shops to visit. They nurture small communities of people with both passengers and flight support staff who can easily remember you. Maybe transitioning from commercial to private flying is how I imagine I would feel if I left NYC to be smothered in the smallness of the suburbs, seeing the same folks over and over.
Eventually we switched to a G-V (G-IVs are so 90s anyway). And we were off.
Lunch—baked chicken and vegetables—was served buffet style with drinks of our choice. Although I usually reach for a white wine in flight (the only time I drink Sutter Home or Turning Leaf, I swear), I was too comfortable to need to anesthetize myself to my surroundings.
Will I really always fly private for now on? Probably not. Private flights lack the "freak" factor I secretly enjoy when traveling amongst hundreds of people I’ll never see again—like the teenager seated next to me with so many body piercings that I was dying to ask her if they hurt when she sneezed but was afraid to speak to her. Or the woman seated next to me on one recent flight who scratched her head obsessively during a three hour flight as I pretended not to notice the scabs she liberated from her scalp throughout the flight. Repulsive? Absolutely, yet also somewhat intriguing.
I might also miss the anonymity of flying commercial. In Up In The Air, George Clooney's character Ryan Bingham claims he travels 320 out of 365 days of the air and happily remains free from attachments and community, traveling with an "empty knapsack," the symbol of his freedom from personal relationships.
Despite his disdain for the communities and close relationships formed at ground level, he unwittingly creates a pseudo-community of dysfunctionality 35,000 feet in the air through his "elite" traveler status which, ironically, ensures name recognition when he checks in at airports and strips him of the privilege of anonymity. I am not there yet so can hold fast to my anonymity, for now.
We complain about them, maliciously and vehemently. We devote substantial television time and internet space to criticizing commercial airlines. Yet, those dreaded commercial flights form a transient bridge to people we will never know—the untouchables for those who fly commercial but the unseeable and unobservable for those who fly private.
I thought flying private would be the ultimate travel privilege but, at least for me, flying with the freaks while retaining some measure of anonymity are much greater privileges (and, well, much cheaper). Oh, my flight is boarding now. Must go.
Notes
*The Gulfstream 450 is a modification of the G-IV, a part of a family of jets produced by Gulfstream Aerospace, a General Dynamics company based in Savannah, Georgia. The G-IV has been superseded by the improved G-V model.
*A modest perversion of Ali MacGraw’s famous line in the 1970 film A Love Story: "Love means never having to say you’re sorry."
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