Dealing with small minded relatives Forum

[Nekrowizard]

How is it possible not to have something to talk about with people you've known for decades, presumably? Half of my friends didn't graduate from high school, and I don't have a single close friend with a college degree even. Whenever I come home for a visit, we manage to bullshit about enough stuff without law or their "mundane lives" coming up. Maybe if you don't have any other topics of conversation with your family besides your/their life, you've got bigger problems in the relationship.

[ClubberLang]

OP, you sound unbearable and should feel embarrassed for having written such drivel. But yeah, if you want to avoid this, just stop seeing your family. They won't miss you, and probably all laugh at you behind your back anyway.

Just a profoundly awful post... One of the worst I've ever read.

[pmcd88]

Hi. I wanted to pose this question on an anonymous forum for fear of looking/feeling like a dick in front of real colleagues so here it goes: How do you as a future lawyer/practicing lawyer deal with small minded relatives? Specifically, cousins and sibling?

My story goes as such: I come from a family in which the predominant mindset is, to put it nicely, very blue collar. At family reunions I almost feel uncomfortable talking about my law school experience because many relatives (cousins and my sister specifically) don't understand what it is to pursue a professional degree or feel the need to bring negativity into the conversation. I usually feel a vibe of skepticism and envy although I really try not to be specific when discussing my goals/dreams and I really try not boast about being an up and coming lawyer so it's gotten to the point where I try to keep the topic of convo on their mundane lives or ignore them. My younger brother is like me in this regard and wants to study law as well as he just finished up his sophomore year of college. The other day we were talking about this and he said to me that he feels above my cousins and sister and therefore does not keep a close relationship with them because he feels they just bring him down. I guess I kind of feel the same way but I feel bad that I do. It just seems like they always have something negative to say about the path I chose perhaps because they aren't happy with theirs or something but after all, they are family. If someone out there has had a similar experience please lend your advice on how to navigate these waters. It'd be much appreciated.

Please retake this post. I'm not going to go any further than saying this is just wrong

[clshopeful]

lol I actually love inciting anger and controversy in forums

[somethingElse]

retake

[WhyYaCryin]

Man, young Marino always seems to be getting destroyed on TLS. I don't remember what it was about but there was another topic that he started and the response was pretty similar to this. What he posted was a little pompous and maybe he's not the most fun guy to be around but come on guys he gets the idea by now

[pancakes3]

I don't mind YM. CLShopeful on the other hand is just full of cringy lulz, starting with the screen name.

[TheSpanishMain]

lol I actually love inciting anger and controversy in forums

You're the clever puppet master pulling our strings. Master stroke, my friend.

[krads153]

lol Since when is being a lawyer/doctor/insert whatever professional impressive?

DUDE - You should get some perspective. I'm from a family where pretty much everyone (except me) has 10 million/20 million/50 million from starting businesses and everyone has a trust fund...that will make you feel shitty about your life and make you realize that working an office job for a measly 200k a year is shitty and "mundane" as you put it.

HTH - being a working professional/grunt makes you just like everybody else. You ain't no entrepreneur.

[krads153]

I get it and understand where you're coming from. No advice though. Family, ya know?

What do you do when you see them though? Just listen to how pathetic you see their life setting up and smile through it while they think they have it all figured out? I've been trying this for a while now and I'm amazed that I haven't just snapped on one of them yet.

I've experienced exactly what you've expressed, though many people in my family have professional degrees. One guy I know in the family is kind of an outcast,and is a firefighter. Total blue collar guy; he views college as overly expensive and a waste of time, and that males should graduate HS and then begin a manual labor job, like a real man. I was talking to his son about going to college, since his son is like 18 and wondering if he should go. The dad was just looking at me like ''what a privileged kid, thinking he's better than manual labor.'' And then once he found out I was in law school, I could just tell he was thinking "oh he thinks he's better than us regular, blue collar people" and that going to law school/pursuing a better career to him seemed pointless and like a snobby rich-kid thing to do.

Fuckin hate it -- anytime something like this happens, I try to avoid questions re: law school; short answers, try to act like I'm really uninterested in answering them. "What type of law?" I'll say "ah, idk."

Let me get this straight. This "blue collar guy" literally said nothing to you as you were telling his son about going to college, but you could just "tell" how inferior he must have felt as you were talking because, after all, your career is so much "better" than his.

A few things. Number one, you sound absolutely insufferable. If he was looking at you some sort of way, it's probably because you're a total prick and it doesn't take long for people around you to realize that and want you to stfu.

Number two, where is this inflated ego coming from? The law school you attend isn't impressive. Your career choice isn't impressive. You're not superior to anyone. Just stop.

Being a firefighter >>>>>>>>>>>>> sitting in an office day working to make other people rich

The average firefighter makes more money than the average lawyer too....

[rpupkin]

The average firefighter makes more money than the average lawyer too....

Source? I'm pretty sure this is wrong.

[unlicensedpotato]

Yes, being a lawyer is as mundane as it gets and you have to be able to laugh about that and OP shouldn't be above talking to anyone, including family obviously. That is the part that is insane, stupid and misguided. Plenty of my family is more "blue collar" than an attorney and they are awesome, very nice, and genuinely interested in my life and I'm interested in their lives. There's plenty of pros/cons to both lifestyles.

But, I would give OP a small amount of credit. There is also a wing of my family that is "small town rich." I had told my parents that I had gotten into a T30 school with a decent scholarship but that I would take a year off to re-apply if that was my best option. My grandparents talked to me and told me that their friends' granddaughter, little Suzie, was going to the T30 for law school and it was a really good school and she was excited to be going so, essentially, what was my problem? Just by not attending this school, they took it as an affront to their region, their friends, etc. This part of my family is very pretentious and they can be huge assholes to people they think are beneath them; they only had a problem with it when they felt they were being treated that way.

[krads153]

The average firefighter makes more money than the average lawyer too....

Source? I'm pretty sure this is wrong.

Average firefighter salary - $43k-45k (also you have off seasons in places with four seasons)
Average lawyer - unemployed/underemployed in some crap job

[rpupkin]

The average firefighter makes more money than the average lawyer too....

Source? I'm pretty sure this is wrong.

Average firefighter salary - $43k-45k (also you have off seasons in places with four seasons)
Average lawyer - unemployed/underemployed in some crap job

LOL. Ok, chief.

[run26.2]

The average firefighter makes more money than the average lawyer too....

Source? I'm pretty sure this is wrong.

Average firefighter salary - $43k-45k (also you have off seasons in places with four seasons)
Average lawyer - unemployed/underemployed in some crap job

LOL. Ok, chief.

That's fire chief to you.

[JuliusCaesar]

The average firefighter makes more money than the average lawyer too....

Source? I'm pretty sure this is wrong.

Average firefighter salary - $43k-45k (also you have off seasons in places with four seasons)
Average lawyer - unemployed/underemployed in some crap job

I would assume the average firefighter is actually volunteer and not paid at all. Coming from a small town, there was pretty much a 10:1 ratio of volunteer firefighters to paid firefighters in any of the towns/cities near mine.

Quick google search says:
"NFPA estimates there were approximately 1,134,400 firefighters in the U.S. in 2014. An estimated 346,150 (31%) of these were career firefighters and 788,250 (69%) were volunteer firefighters. Most of the career firefighters (70%) worked in communities that protected 25,000 or more people."

[Aristogeiton1]

lol Since when is being a lawyer/doctor/insert whatever professional impressive?

DUDE - You should get some perspective. I'm from a family where pretty much everyone (except me) has 10 million/20 million/50 million from starting businesses and everyone has a trust fund...that will make you feel shitty about your life and make you realize that working an office job for a measly 200k a year is shitty and "mundane" as you put it.

HTH - being a working professional/grunt makes you just like everybody else. You ain't no entrepreneur.

This is a lot of things.
One thing it is not is "perspective."

[Aristogeiton1]

Also I can kind of understand where OP is coming from.
There's a branch of my family that consists entirely of unemployed/barely-employed/"retired"/on disability, partially due to systemic conditions, and partialy due to poor decison making, and their general attitude seems to be negative toward me becoming a lawyer. The exact same attitude was shared when my brother got into medical school.
Maybe its the assumption that I'll "think I'm better than them" or will "judge them."
Who knows.
I try to avoid them because we're very different people.
OP is a little bit of a tool though.

[clshopeful]

The average firefighter makes more money than the average lawyer too....

Source? I'm pretty sure this is wrong.

Holy shit this is wrong

[clshopeful]

Also I can kind of understand where OP is coming from.
There's a branch of my family that consists entirely of unemployed/barely-employed/"retired"/on disability, partially due to systemic conditions, and partialy due to poor decison making, and their general attitude seems to be negative toward me becoming a lawyer. The exact same attitude was shared when my brother got into medical school.
Maybe its the assumption that I'll "think I'm better than them" or will "judge them."
Who knows.
I try to avoid them because we're very different people.
OP is a little but of a tool though.

This is basically what OP and I were getting at. OP and I are a little more blunt and critical, but this is what we were getting at. And of course we get attacked by the liberals for talking bad about firefighters. Yay for people being offended by literally everything.

[Phil Brooks]

Also I can kind of understand where OP is coming from.
There's a branch of my family that consists entirely of unemployed/barely-employed/"retired"/on disability, partially due to systemic conditions, and partialy due to poor decison making, and their general attitude seems to be negative toward me becoming a lawyer. The exact same attitude was shared when my brother got into medical school.
Maybe its the assumption that I'll "think I'm better than them" or will "judge them."
Who knows.
I try to avoid them because we're very different people.
OP is a little but of a tool though.

This is basically what OP and I were getting at. OP and I are a little more blunt and critical, but this is what we were getting at. And of course we get attacked by the liberals for talking bad about firefighters. Yay for people being offended by literally everything.

As opposed to conservatives when it comes to any criticism of the military, police, christianity, Israel/Netanyahu, the rich....

[Foghornleghorn]

young Marino flame posts never cease to amuse

[mornincounselor]

The average firefighter makes more money than the average lawyer too....

Source? I'm pretty sure this is wrong.

Average firefighter salary - $43k-45k (also you have off seasons in places with four seasons)
Average lawyer - unemployed/underemployed in some crap job

LOL. Ok, chief.

If we are accounting for the costs of the respective degrees I don't think the statement is all that far off.

[rpupkin]

If we are accounting for the costs of the respective degrees I don't think the statement is all that far off.

Wut? LOL @ being able to cop a big fire gig with a cheap degree these days. Just LOL.

[mornincounselor]

If we are accounting for the costs of the respective degrees I don't think the statement is all that far off.

Wut? LOL @ being able to cop a big fire gig with a cheap degree these days. Just LOL.

If you are okay with a flyover district all it takes is a community clerkship. Not everyone wants that NYFD.