Your Unemployed Lawyer wanted the world to slow down last week, to be quiet, to go away. I felt silenced by the sheer magnitude of what there was to speak about and so, spoke about nothing.  How many times can I criticize mass layoffs when they have become as common as dust? It's just business; business as usual.

I did feel a flutter of interest when the ever-astounding Sonnenschein, which lit a beacon several years ago and has continued to hold it high through these days of darkness, managed to drop 60 lawyers from one mighty hand, quietly hired sixty-five lateral partners with the other, and then scooped both hands together into the swirl of dirt and confusion that once was Thacher to lift up 95 panting and desperate lawyers to shelter in its palms, while the other 100 or so were swept away and sucked beneath the waves. Haven't you guys seen a movie? Heroes are supposed to save everyone. Oh, well. I know. It's business.

It is business. It's not loyalty. It's not friendship. It's not even, as so many of us have thought for so long, politics. I have seen some highly skilled politicians slide right off that slippery slope because they did not bring in money for the firm and showed no promise of doing so. Even though they busted ass and did great work, they would better have spent their time cozying up to clients than to partners. See ya! It's just business! Mind the alligators down below!

A very formidable partner friend, and I use the word sincerely, once asked me why none of the associates, especially those whom she was assigned to mentor, ever came to her with their troubles. To this day, I can't figure out which aspect of her question troubled me more. I was completely astounded that she wanted such impositions; she regularly, loudly, and publicly bemoaned the fact that she didn't ever have enough time for anything and had to do everything herself. And, yet, she truly wanted and expected the young and the lost to seek shelter with her, taking yet even more time out of her already overwhelming days. She was hurt that nobody came. She really wanted to help. She didn't know that her legendary temper scared off all comers before they even thought of approaching. She didn't know she had a temper. She was actually very shy and very sweet, except you don't get to use those qualities in business, and she had worked herself sick to bury them. But she still wanted to help; I think, because, no matter what, you can't help being who you are.

I'll never forget the look on her face when I finally had to tell her that she couldn't realistically expect people whose lives she controlled to come running to her to pour their hearts out. She looked as if I had punched her. She looked completely bewildered. And she said to me very slowly, "I don't have control over their lives".

And then we went over the list together of the lives she had in her control and how she controlled them.  I asked her how she could expect those people to reveal their hearts to her when she could make them gone in a matter of minutes. I didn't like myself very well for the rest of that day, but I remain convinced that I told her the truth.

Love and power don't go very well together. Power is business. And business is, well, business, not personal.

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[1] Universal Pictures, 1981, directed by Michael Apted, starring John Belushi, Blair Brown.