Everyone has deadline issues, be they work, family, or any other kind. I suffered through life without internet access for the better part of the past week. My modem/router died.
I am sure that my experience with customer service (I won’t name the internet provider) was the same as others.
First, a tech is sent out who doesn’t have the right experience to solve my problems. When he leaves after a futile three hours or so of futzing around, he leaves me in the lurch without any suggestion of who to call next and how to solve the problem, essentially washing his hands of the whole thing. That did not make me happy, and so I called the Office of the President to complain. We lawyers certainly know how to do that.
The next day, a tech arrives who does know how to solve the two problems I have, which he does do and voila, I am back up and running. I love this tech.
The lack of access to the internet made me realize how dependent I am upon it, and I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not. I couldn’t stream anything, I couldn’t pay bills or shop, I couldn’t do anything that relies on the internet to make it happen, and yet I know that there are internet deserts around the country. I used my smartphone to get out in the world, at least somewhat, but I think about what the absence of the internet is like, and it hasn’t been pretty. Am I addicted to the internet? What do you think? Is there an Internet Anonymous support group?
So, what HAVE I been doing? Trying to clean up my desk and office, which is always a challenge, since I have never met a piece of paper I didn’t like. Reading books that I previously downloaded to my Kindle, plus a bunch of physical books. Except for the convenience of the Kindle Paperwhite in terms of size and weight, I prefer real books. For me, easier on the eyes (remember my age), and I like the idea of turning pages physically and being able to find something, a note, a name in the index, a map, whatever.
Turning pages, that’s what this year has been, and the pages have not turned fast enough for me and everyone else. We look to 2021 (remember how we were anticipating 2020?) to hopefully get life back on some semblance of what life was like prepandemic. Do you remember those days? Movie, concerts, plays, dinners out, museums, shopping, browsing in bookstores and libraries, and the myriad of other things that we all enjoyed in the days before mid-March. Ability to travel with ease, hang out with family and friends, all the things we took for granted, and I wonder if we ever will experience them again in the same way.
Who remembers Geraldine Ferraro? Only those of a certain age will. For millennials, she is only a name in a history book, if indeed history of the 1980s is being taught at all.
Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to be nominated as vice president of a major party. Walter Mondale, who had been Jimmy Carter’s vice president, headed the Democratic ticket in 1984, and he selected Ferraro as his running mate. A lawyer and a Congress member, many women were thrilled by her selection as it validated the belief held by many women (and some men) that a woman could be nominated for national office. It was only three years after President Ronald Reagan had nominated Sandra Day O’Connor as the first woman to join the Supreme Court.
The problem was that Reagan was running for his second term, and his popularity doomed the Democratic ticket, along with allegations of questionable financial issues for both Ferraro and her husband, John Zaccaro.
Cut to 2020 and we have the second woman nominated, the first woman of color, as vice president on the Democratic ticket, the ticket that won, challenges to the election notwithstanding. For me, as an old lady lawyer, I didn’t think that such an event would happen in my lifetime. It’s a happy thought for me and many others. When I think of all the changes, way too slow for many of them, it’s such a different world than when I started practicing in the mid-1970s.
Down ballot here in Los Angeles County, we now have the first all-female Board of Supervisors. The Board wields enormous power and influence in this county and to see an all-female Board when not all that long ago, the Supes were all white men of a certain age is exciting. Women here no longer must wait for a seat at the table. They have taken all the seats, finally.
The women on the Board are not cookie-cutter; they each have their own district to represent, to account to, and each geographic district has different needs and wants. I didn’t think that an all-female Board was something that I would ever see in my lifetime. The Board is not lawyer laden, a good thing. Sometimes we lawyers think that we are the only ones who know how to solve problems, and that’s just not true.
Like “good little girls,” we were told to “wait your turn” far too often. Such was the case with Holly Mitchell, the winning candidate for the open supervisor seat, who was told that. I hope that our “waiting your turn” days are over for good. We are no longer willing to wait. Millennial women, you can thank us whenever you’re ready.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.