 Carm's Recipes for court reporters and everyone else that likes to eat! (please send your favorite recipes - we will gladly test your recipes :) |
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THE MYTH OF CONTINUITYby
Carmelita Lee, CSR |
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| We were
nowhere near his car. There wasn’t a hope in hell that we could have
dinged his car, in fact I was able to stand between the two open doors
to address him. Yet he railed on and on at me and my daughter, not for
dinging his car, but for having the nerve to park our “piece of sh*t
Mexican lawn-mowing truck next to my brand new Mercedes.” And it was
brand new; the paper tags and sticker price were still taped to the
inside rear window. Two regulars from the coffee shop came out carrying their goods and stopped to watch our public humiliation. Just as the Mercedes owner was getting revved up a notch, the funniest thing happened. Three huge crows sitting on a light pole under which his car was parked decided to… simultaneously relieve themselves on his windshield. Some of the thick white goo even splattered on his obviously expensive leisure wear. The language that came from that refined “gentleman’s” mouth could have made a sailor blush, as me, my daughter and the two observers were wracked with laughter. “See lady, there is a God!” one of them exclaimed. Frontier justice, don’t you just love it? There’s a name for what happened to us that day; it’s called the “myth of continuity.” My daughter and I didn’t deserve nor were we prepared to be dressed down for the simple act of parking our dinged-up vehicle next to a luxury car, and the self-important, highly agitated luxury car owner wasn’t expecting to be driving his prized possession to the local car wash that morning. We all suffer from a delusion that tells us that today is going to be like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today. But ask any victim of any crime whether he planned to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and listen to his response. The incidents of “things gone wrong” can be anything from a minor and somewhat humorous aggravation to a major disruption in our lives, everything from your best dress being lost at the cleaners to a death in the family. We have all had days where nothing can go right, when we’re all thumbs, when an already high-pressure day suddenly gets worse, and we need someone or something or God himself to rescue us. It is not hard to miss that our profession is going through a shakedown, locally and nationally. State budgets get tighter and tighter, our country is supporting troops on several fronts and waging a real war on terrorism, which takes the focus of our leaders away from our everyday problems and concerns. There seems to be belt-tightening in all facets of our market, including captioning. One would think that captioning would be a safe haven for the highly skilled, but the reality is that even the sponsors who buy captioning services are pulling in their horns. The nagging reality of it is facing us head-on, and our concerns are not trivial. Back a few years ago the federal courts were in danger of shutting down when the budget hadn’t been approved by Congress. It’s a cyclical thing that comes up occasionally. Budget approval was a frightening time for me because my husband is no longer able to work, and I’m the primary breadwinner. Only essential transcripts were approved, and sometimes the beleaguered US Attorneys would come and beg for a transcript that they couldn’t approve for payment. It was our choice, we could provide it or not; most of us did. On the civil side, even the cash cows, the big corporations, weren’t ordering transcripts, or if they did, they weren’t the dailies one would have expected. Myth of continuity. We went through a similar problem here in Ireland last year. The market is extremely small, and reporting a trial is not always considered of paramount importance. Up until the late 80's notes were taken by both attorneys and the court, and if an appeal were taken, the notes and the recollection of the parties formed the basis of the record for appeal if there was no transcript. This is still the way it’s done in Israel. Furthermore, except for criminal trials, cases are not reported at all unless the defendant hires us. There are rare occasions that the plaintiff may hire us, and it’s not uncommon to have two reporters show up from two different firms to report a job. In fact, I once had to do that, report a case while sitting directly opposite our competitor’s ace reporter. Talk about pressure. Whatever it was that caused the work slowdown wreaked havoc among the reporters and the three small agencies that employ us. The lack of work and the tremendous number of days off could have worked together to impoverish us. The once busy courthouse was practically a tomb, and the amount of work that was available for the approximately 80 reporters in Ireland was nil. My firm worked valiantly to provide an opportunity of work for its employees, having to parcel and rotate us through the few jobs that were available. Jobs that would normally last the day would be split between two reporters. It was a frightening time for most of us. Some of the younger people were buying homes, some were starting their families, several of us are heads of households with non-working spouses. I have to tell you, it was a tough, tough year. One day last year, I suppose because I was bored and had nothing to do, I fidgeted around with my diary, deciding to memorialize how many times I had actually worked since January. I made a graph and headed it Month, No. of Days Worked, and started paging back through the diary. January, 9, I wrote. February . . . and as I started to count, the little voice inside instructed me to stop counting, and reminded me of a Bible story I knew well. It was about King David, (2nd Samuel 24) who, like all wise kings, decided to count his fighting men. But in his case, his strength wasn’t found in numbering his soldiers, and he was told it was a definite no-no to count them. I shuddered when I remembered the story and the consequences, and decided maybe I shouldn’t count the days after all. It was enough that I knew I wasn’t working the average 20 to 22 days per month, and there was one month when one couldn’t help but notice the five billable entries. Myth of continuity. I was caught short, and decided to be proactive about my situation. I decided to pray about work. Faith has always played a large role in my life, and so I fell back into the familiar pattern for seeking solace in God. I made a particular request; that each of my colleagues would have as much work as they needed, and that since I obviously couldn’t work more than was available, I prayed that each workday would count for the maximum amount of income. I must say that we didn’t starve, didn’t go into overdrafts or fail to make payments. In fact, we prospered. The year turned around, new judges were appointed, and things leveled out for me and my colleagues. Last month I met one of the most interesting deponents of my life; a working class Brit who, by the grace of God (as he said himself in deposition) had achieved status as an inventor of SWIFT. SWIFT is the method used for international money transfers. Even I have benefited from his invention more than once. SWIFT made him a multimillionaire, although he didn’t look or act like one. He lives in France (er, Fronce, he says), on 1200 acres that includes a lake, two rivers, a “wee stand of trees” . . . read forest there . . . outbuildings, stables, paddocks. He was an expert witness for Bank of America, dealing in the area of fraud by bank wire. As the day wore on, we learned that amid his successes, he had lost his first wife and child in an auto accident, and his second wife to a brain tumor. His oldest daughter has had a debilitating disease, and he suffers from diabetes. Despite all the above, he appeared to be a most centered and affable person, friendly and relaxed. When the day was over I extended my hand to him, and, as an unexpected perk of my European job, he took both my hands in his and bent down to kiss both sides of my face. “I managed to make you laugh at my silly jokes once or twice, luv,” he said, “and you were a pleasant part of my day.” I was tickled by the kindness, and I added my own sympathy at his losses. It’s not something we really get to do much in the States, talk to the deponents. But it’s something I enjoy, and makes my mechanical role a bit more pleasant. He smiled brightly at me, and he said, “Oh, not to worry. I’m a happy person, and those terrible things shaped my character into who I am today.” Myth of continuity. What comprises the myth is that none of us knows exactly what lies ahead, even in the next five seconds, let alone tomorrow. The only certainty we can count on is the uncertainty each day brings. Life really is golden when there’s continuity. When my kids were little they would ask me, “Mom, is the world ending?” I am not an expert in these matters, so I took the safe road and told them that it could be, but we still have to pay the rent next month. It’s a way of saying be prepared for eternity and for living each day. Last year it looked like my reporting career was drying up and my reason to move to Ireland with it. I decided to assess my skills and talents. I needed to combat a growing sense of frustration and panic by taking control of my circumstances. I had often been complimented on a certain cake recipe, so I took a chance and sent a cake to a local restaurant. They loved the cake, and started ordering one, then two, then several a week. Before long I was applying for a business license and seeking information into opening a bakery. It wasn’t huge money, but I was able to successfully augment my income with cake and muffin baking from January to August of last year. I was surprised by the response to my Cherry-Almond cake and Lemon Poppy seed cake, but it was bread-and-butter money for a while. This is the unexpected, but in a good way. It bolstered my confidence that we could make a living doing something even if the court reporting dried up completely.
As we watch our elected representatives fight ER,
downsizing and layoffs in the public and private sectors, keep in mind
that there really is an antidote for the myth of continuity: a
contingency plan. |
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