take a deep breath and think before you hit "send"

The following email exchange has been confirmed as authentic. In it, a young lawyer rejects a job offer that she has previously accepted.

________________________

E-mail number 1:
Fr: Diana Abdala
To: Will Korman
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 9:23 PM
Subject: Thank you

Dear Attorney Korman,

At this time, I am writing to inform you that I will not be accepting your offer.

After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the pay you are offering would neither fulfill me nor support the lifestyle I am living in light of the work I would be doing for you. I have decided instead to work for myself, and reap 100% of the benefits that I sew [sic].

Thank you for the interviews.

Dianna L. Abdala, Esq.

Email number 2:
From: William A. Korman
To: 'Dianna Abdala'
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 12:15 PM
Subject: RE: Thank you

Dianna -

Given that you had two interviews, were offered and accepted the job (indeed, you had a definite start date), I am surprised that you chose an e-mail and a 9:30 PM voicemail message to convey this information to me. It smacks of immaturity and is quite unprofessional. Indeed, I did rely upon your acceptance by ordering stationary [sic] and business cards with your name, reformatting a computer and setting up both internal and external e-mails for you here at the office. While I do not quarrel with your reasoning, I am extremely disappointed in the way this played out. I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

- Will Korman


E-mail Number 3
From: Dianna Abdala
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:01 PM
To: William A. Korman
Subject: Re: Thank you

A real lawyer would have put the contract into writing and not exercised any such reliance until he did so.

Again, thank you.

E-mail #4
From: William A. Korman

To: 'Dianna Abdala'
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:18 PM
Subject: RE: Thank you

Thank you for the refresher course on contracts. This is not a bar exam question. You need to realize that this is a very small legal community, especially the criminal defense bar. Do you really want to start pissing off more experienced lawyers at this early stage of your career?

E-mail #5
From: Dianna Abdala
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 4:29 PM
To: William A. Korman
Subject: Re: Thank you

bla bla bla

_______________________

Res ipsa loquitur.

I imagine I've done things just as stupid as this in my day, but I've never been stupid enough to put them in writing. The poor thing.

she's gotta have it

I seriously need to have a Bluetooth virtual keyboard. I really cannot resist the concept that I could actually type on a keyboard consisting of an image projected on a table.

Of course the drawback is that, although compatible with my flavor of Treo, the gadget that projects the keyboard, and passes the keystrokes on to the CPU/PDA looks to be the size of my Treo or larger. Which means that I really can't justify buying this on compactness grounds and would have to admit that I want to buy it just to show off. So now, having admitted that, I can't actually buy one now.

get out of Hell free cards

I seriously need this product. The maker sells them by the individual card, and in jumbo packs of 500+. The flip side says they are good for the seven deadly sins, "plus stupidity." I hasten to point out that of course stupidity is not a sin, and furthermore is its own punishment.

Let's see now. Other than distributing them to excessively remorseful clients, and granting absolution in my occasional role as goddess, I could use these cards as an employee benefit.

pub 2105

Even I find this one hard to believe.

Doing some early morning research today I discovered that the Internal Revenue Service has an entire publication devoted to the topic Why do I have to Pay Taxes? (peculiar capitalization in the original).

Hm. I had supposed that I pay taxes to fund IRS expense in producing booklets, now that I think of it.

To save my loyal readers the trouble of actually reviewing this document, I will tell you that it is only two pages long, and unlike every other IRS pub I have ever used, it is written largely in purple and lavender script. Also, I will tell you (with hyperlinks, unlike the pamphlet, which doesn't bother to quote the actual wording of the cites) that the authority to levy (federal income) taxes lies in article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, supplemented by the Sixteenth Amendment, and implemented by Title 26 of the U.S. Code.

It's hard for me to believe that a pamphlet printed in purple would sway tax protesters, its apparent intended audience.