Here's a list of jobs I had before before becoming a lawyer:

• Bakery cashier

• Waitress (three different places: a fancy overpriced $500 tab for 2-top place, a cocktail bar, and a strip club)

• Maid at Super 8 Motel

• Research assistant

• Babysitter

• Several different call center jobs

• Low rent model

• Trust and safety at a tech company (taking down illegal or banned pages and reviewing the worst humanity has to offer every day for two years)

• Modeling agency (I don't even know what my job technically was there - basically to rip off people who would never be models by selling them expensive portfolio packages).

• B2B sales

The worst jobs by far were the call center jobs, being a motel maid (disgusting and exhausting), and waitressing in a strip club (owners would purposely overstaff and not give you enough tables to make sufficient $$, so they could pressure and try to convince you to go on stage for more $$). The most enjoyable job by far was waitressing in a bar (drunk customers are usually at least nice and in a good mood). Best job was lawyer, but only once I became a partner, being an associate was awful.

But the only reason being a lawyer is good is because of the money and status (well, that's at least 85% of why it's good). It's truly disturbing how much more respect people will give you if you have what society deems a fancy job. Even for something like being a lawyer, which everyone actually hates and resents…and yet STILL they treat you better even if they hate you. And boy do parents ever love bragging about their kids being doctors or lawyers. :/

When I had those other jobs, people regularly treated me like I was a moron and with total condescension. Now that never happens (at least in real life, it still happens on Substack 😘). But I was just as intelligent, well-read, and knowledgeable when I was waitress or maid. In fact if anything I was moreso, because I used to have more time to read and think about things besides protecting rich people’s economic interests. I never understood people who said law school “taught them how to think”…it did no such thing in my case, I was thinking plenty before I went.

The other twisted thing is the status ranking within the lawyer class…personal injury at the bottom (well okay, that's deserved) and lawyers charging $1k an hour to represent rich people at the top. It bears zero relation to capacity or skills, in my experience. Public defenders are some of the best lawyers out there, they're just juggling 300 cases at any given time. And I regularly work with AmLaw 50 overpriced attorneys as opposing counsel who are not at all impressive. The thing is, the richer your client is, the easier it is to win, because most litigation is just a matter of the more economically powerful party crushing the opposition by making it so expensive they eventually have no choice but to cave. I'm not a litigator, so that's not sour grapes on my part, it’s just my perception watching the litigators. In my specialty, I serve rich people and businesses, and society just automatically grants that more status for no discernible reason other than that people worship money.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that no one should be embarrassed of their job. Even if you're cleaning toilets, like I used to. Society confers status in a mostly bullshit manner. Even most doctors seem to realize that nowadays. And they've got the highest ratio of self-important psychopaths masquerading as do-gooders out there. 😉 So when even doctors start realizing status games are just that, no one else should have any shame.