The Demise of the American Work Ethic

Last week, I got into an online argument with a lawyer on LinkedIn. Maybe not too unusual except that most progressive friends in real life have unfriended me on Facebook except the few who are willing to engage in thoughtful debate.

On LinkedIn, it’s even rarer because I only discuss business, engineering, or law. I avoid seriously controversial topics because there’s no point. I don’t want to anger clients and potential clients. And I tend to find extremists coming out of nowhere to argue with me on LinkedIn. I think it’s because Facebook is more limiting about who sees your posts than LinkedIn.

LinkedIn presented a post to me from a lawyer about dealing with difficult clients. Looking at the title, I thought it might be useful information. Since I deal with lots of clients, some difficult, and lots of lawyers, some difficult, I thought I might learn something. And I did. Just not what I thought I would. His understanding of “difficult” is much different than mine. Here is his post:

Don’t ever send your lawyer an email with the red urgent flag. Because if your lawyer is anything like me, that’s an easy way to get yourself fired as a client. And definitely don’t start blowing up your lawyer with red flag emails and text messages on a Saturday afternoon. Again, you’ll get fired.