Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: attorney, bitch, divorce, ex-husband, ex-wife, firm, lawyers, marriage, money, refarral
I am stunned by the amount of people and the “type” of people that are getting divorced these days….stunned! Recovering Straight Girl and I were the first in a long line of small town divorces but it would almost appear these days to have hit epidemic proportions. I hear of people from every walk of life, every religion and many that have several children and have been married forever! But that’s not what this post is about, it’s about my comical experience with a horrible Amazon-type divorce attorney that I hired….and then fired, several years ago.
Since I happen to know a few of the people getting divorces around town and since many of them know that I’ve “been there, done that” I find that I’m somehow a resource for other women looking for a good lawyer. I’ve had four. This is the story of the one that I DO NOT recommend….unless I’m feeling truly naughty and I don’t like the person that I’m giving a referral to.
Understanding that my previous marriage was over and that I needed to hire an attorney, I went on the advice of my old boss who recommended this particular woman because “she caused me to loose everything”. That’s right, my boss recommended his ex-wife’s attorney, not his own. (By the way, I’m not going to tell you who she is because frankly, I’m afraid of her!)
So I contacted the attorney, set up an appointment and when the day came I drove downtown to the 3 story brick office building that housed “The Firm”. I had been having a pretty bad week and was not in the best mental shape by the time I got into the office and I was ushered into a very small, very private waiting room. It was an odd room but I was told that this attorney had many high-profile clients and “discretion was of the utmost importance”. That of course made me feel pretty special until I then realized that special equaled $$$$$$$$$$.
So I sat in the little room, surrounded by books about divorce and parenting and I waited, and waited, and waited. Every once in a while I could overhear the secretary talking on the phone, then the attorney would come through the intercom and request something from her, then there would be silence until the attorney would request something else. The attorney’s voice was getting increasingly louder and more demanding as I listened until at one point I heard her door fly open and she was actually yelling at her secretary….I mean yelling! She was bitching her out, up one side and down the other and all of a sudden the door of the little room I was sitting in swung open and I know that my eyes popped out of my head as I stared up at this woman of at least 6 foot 6 inches and 250 pounds who was appologizing profusely at having made me wait…..it was a very scary site. And of course I was pissed at having to have waited for over half an hour but there was no way I was going to tell her that, no way! My response was more like “Oh no, that’s okay….I’m sorry to have upset you for waiting….”. The secretary was in tears, seriously, she was sobbing and I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell I was getting into.
The next 2 hours consisted of similar behavior by both of us. Me acting like a broken woman and her mentally and emotionally beating me up. At one point I was crying….and I swear I thought she was going to slap me, I SWEAR IT! I think that if she could have she would have. I kept wondering what the hell I was paying for, no one deserved that kind of ass kicking.
This went on for about an hour. She sat in a comfy chair opposite mine, shoes off with her skirt hiked up over her knees so that she could get her fat cankles tucked under her butt while her black tights screamed to be two sizes larger, lecturing me on a lesson in Narcicism (pointing to my future ex-husbands biggest flaw) she said to me “and I think you’re a Narcicist too.” “What?” I asked, through tears and sobs, “why would you say that?” and she responded “Because you called me. I work with celebrities and people with money and you had to have the biggest attorney in town because you think you’re so special. Guess what? You can’t afford me.”
That was the “epiphany” moment, the moment I knew I was right where I should be because every thread of my being was saying “I’ll show her!” and I really started listening to what she was saying. It was sales pitch, and a damn good one (I get that now). I began to wonder how many other people had come into her office meak as a mouse and had left there feeling truly empowered because God knew, I was one. I would show her, and my future ex-husband would fear for the wrath of this bitch!
The second hour was much different. She caused me to really think about the position that I was in and how to empower myself. She snapped me back into reality and helped build up my self-esteem that had been so torn down. As our meeting came to a close I plunked down the $10,000 retainer fee and I felt better then I had in weeks, and I felt better equipt to deal with the issues at home.
Not long after that I was passed down to a lesser known attorney at the firm and eventually I was passed down to an even lesser known attorney and I began to feel as though no one really gave a shit, they just wanted my money, and they got it. They got almost the entire $10,000 before I fired them and hired another more responsive attorney that finished out my divorce, to my satisfaction.
I will say that that experience taught me a tremendous amount. In all reality my entire divorce did wonders for me, it completely changed my life and it changed it for the better. There’s an old saying that is one of my favorites: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, and I’m living proof of that. That divorce ended up costing me about $31,000 in the end but what I got out of it mentally and emotionally was priceless.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: credit, idiot, mistake, MLM, money, spending, toys
I was thinking earlier today about items and/or services that I have purchased over the years and in hindsight now realize how horribly mis-spent those purchases were. I thought that I would share a few of them with you, not with the hope that you won’t make a similar mistake but rather to share with you my total and complete idiocy.
- After my divorce and before meeting MFH I spent $1,500 on a dating service. This was a special service that promised to match me with other “professionals”. I went out on one set-up date, while I was promised 15. A week after that date I met MFH and was not entitled to a refund (read the contract).
- I once bought into a $2,000 + $200/month MLM online video system that was not only going to make me rich but was also going to help me with my business and add credibility to my e-mails, web presence, etc. I have never pulled the cameras out of the boxes and I have no idea how to use the system. I was able to stop the recurring charges to my credit card but the $2K was gone for good.
- Last year I promised my assistant that I would get a “contact management” system and decided to go with a company that EVERYBODY in my office was using. There was a one time set-up fee of about $300 and recurring monthly fees of about $200. While my assistant used it sporadically, I was never that fond of it and the training that was promised was a joke. When I went to tell the company that I wanted to cancel their service they told me that I had signed a one year contract, so I was basically screwed! I showed them though, I cancelled the credit card that they were charging!
- A very long time ago, BK (before kids) dumbass and I went into a gallery in Cannon Beach and bought a bronze sculpture for about $2400. It was a total splurge, totally stupid. During the divorce he claimed this piece of artwork and since I wasn’t up for the fight I let it go. Surprise, dumbass went broke pretty quickly and about a year later and I was asked if I would like to buy it from him. I forked over $1K to buy it back, I knew that would happen.
- Home parties+friends with money = crap no one needs.
- I worked for about 4 years in a high end jewelry store. Would you care to guess how much beautiful jewelry that I’ll never wear that I own? Don’t bother, it would shock and disappoint!
OK, this is depressing the hell out of me, but at least I can say that I’m pretty sure I’ve learned my lesson! I actually ended up marrying a man who is pretty finacially savvy and he has helped me see the error of my ways. Then again have you seen the toys in our garage?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: attitude, career, economy, housing market, job, job loss, life, money, real estate, work
So BFF J and I had a bit of a heart to heart this afternoon. It seems that earlier today she received her “pink slip”. This was not altogether unexpected as she’s been working on contract for a large trucking company, and we all know how well trucking companies are doing in this less than stellar economy. She’s not too upset about it though and I envy her for that. Most people haven’t been as smart as she and her husband when it comes to finances and she doesn’t have to work so she’s among the lucky few. I spent some time crying the blues about the real estate market too. The funny thing is that I’m still working, I’m just not making money!
So when I started selling real estate in 2003 the housing market was actually pretty slow, by “normal” standards. It gradually improved and by 2005 I could hardly keep up with the work load. I was a complete idealist, I was in the business to help people make their dreams of home ownership come true. I know that sounds sappy and Saccharine but it really is the truth. In the height of the market, somewhere between 2004-2005, I was writing a crazy amount of contracts on homes for clients that would stand in line or draw lottery numbers or even over-pay for a house! Nowadays I’m fortunate to write one contract a month (for a buyer) and I’m lucky to see an offer on a home. Oddly enough I’m working less but netting about the same and here’s why: in a boom only about 25-50% of my offers were accepted and today they all get accepted because everyone knows how rare it is to actually see an offer.
The gradual downward progression from optimism to pessimism usually doesn’t happen overnight and mine has been no exception. I think that it really began with my first sale related to a divorce. Prior to that all of the sellers that I had worked with were either relocating and/or moving on up….happy reasons to move! Shortly after the first divorce clients, the second followed and then the “downsizers”; clients that were looking to downsize their existing home and get something smaller, for a variety of reasons but usually financial. Then came the “job loss” clients. We were still in a decent financial market, housing prices were stabilizing and I could still help these people get out with equity……..they were the lucky ones. The “job loss” clients were followed all too closely by the “short sellers”, which is where I find myself today.
The “short sellers” are the most depressing group of clients that I could ever hope to NOT work with yet this is where I find myself today. See, the “short sellers” have NOTHING (for the most part) and many of them are in divorce…..the ultimate double whammy! These are people that (more than likely) at some point had equity in their home but the problem is that the market has dropped so dramatically that their homes are no longer worth what they owe on them. AND to make matters worse, for a variety of reasons they cannot afford to stay in their home.
Do you see my decline? So I went from helping people live the co-called American Dream to helping people throw it away, get rid of it, destroy it, and pretty much trash it. Don’t get me wrong, many of these people have made very bad choices that got them into the bad situations they’re in, but many of them are still making those same bad choices and they just want a free ride.
So therein lies my dilemma, my sour attitude toward a career and business that was once my passion has affected my mental state to the point where I do not want to be a Realtor anymore. To make matters worse, I’m not the only one. There are a tremendous amount of Realtors getting out of the market and I can understand why! To a certain extent I’ve reached survival mode, which sucks. I do not work well in survival mode because it’s all about making money and making money is not my passion, that’s just a bonus 
So BFF J and I are trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up. She sees her pink slip as the golden ticket to finding her passion and an open gate to several self-fulfilling opportunities (my words, not hers). I see the down market and my steadily worsening attitude as an invitation to begin anew, attempt a new adventure……….or I could crawl into a hole hoping that when things get better someone might come and take me back to the party. Well, one can dream and one can survive. Either way I know that wherever we land it’s where we’re suppose to be…………right?
