Rona's lessons

If you have been paying attention, then you must surely have a clue who signs my paycheques. This is an important disclaimer for the amount of dissembling I am about to engage in.

My involvement with Rona begun on the 25th March. I had instructions to "assist" a team at an undisclosed location to work through various legal scenarios. Ordinarily, such instructions are in writing, and identify contact persons and focal points - a person in charge. My instructions also usually involve some sort of end-game, a document or documents that one can point to and say, "Maundu offered the following services and I am satisfied, dissatisfied, pissed the fck off, whatever." This time round, my instructions were vague, nothing beyond, "Pack a bag. Go to this place. Help out."

I wasn't unduly worried. Even with minimal instructions, once I know whom I am working for, it isn't that difficult to figure out what they need, whether their needs can be met, how they can be met and what success (or failure) looks like. I packed a bag. Had a spot of lunch. Took myself to the slaughter. Because, Jesus Christ on a Stick, even now I can't tell you what I was supposed to do, whom I as supposed to do it for, and what it was all supposed to achieve.

I am not a difficult man at the worst of times. I am almost always patient and accommodating - I once assisted another group prepare a draft document by taking them in painstaking detail through every possible scenario. On that occasion, I was on my feet for close to nine hours. In the end we had a document that they were happy with and I was happy I'd done some real lawyering for once. This past month has not been rewarding. Quite frankly, it has, to paraphrase Charles Dickens, been the worst of times. Not only were my instructions vague, they were never clarified even after repeated attempts to clarify them with various pot-bellied and self-important powers-that-be. I held out for three days. The day the nighttime curfew took effect, I took myself out of the whole thing. I told the man who seemed in charge that I had to go home for a change of underwear and never went back.

What I do isn't complicated or complex. It's a specialized skill for sure, but any decent student can learn it. It takes practice and patience to be competent at it and so long as one keeps an open mind, remembers the basics, knows which questions to ask, and has a general awareness of the current legislative environment, legislative drafting is not akin to sending a human to the lunar surface. I have had occasion to work with difficult clients. The types whose technical reach far exceeds their intellectual grasp but are too arrogant to admit their obvious limitations. (Just this month I entered into a shouting match with one who hilariously read me his resume and invoked the "Do you know who I am?" threat.) But almost always, they will see the wisdom of heeding my professional advice and work with me to solve their problems. (Even this latest shout-y one eventually bowed to my wisdom and now he is a happy camper.)

The people I was working with had absolutely no capacity to think beyond their narrow and white-knuckle-grip beliefs. They knew what they knew and regardless of whatever the situation demanded and whatever statutory tools were available, they had set their minds to a specific outcome and they would not be held back.  It was like dealing with the members of a religious cult - the followers of David Koresh or Jim Jones. So long as their leader had set them on a particular course of action, they would follow, no matter if the course led to absurd outcomes. It was frustrating dealing with adults, supposedly with minds of their own, who would set upon a lark simply because that is what Dear Leader apparently wanted. One can only attempt to advise such a group for so long. On the third day, I threw in the towel. And switched off my mobile. And then hell broke loose.

Every single bad idea that they had tried to get me to rubber-stamp came back to haunt them. Every bad instinct that I had tried to walk them back from, they merrily indulged in. Of course things turned to shit. Of course they tried to lay the blame on me. Of course they failed. The experience has left a bitter aftertaste. It has exposed something that I have been willing to overlook for the longest time. There are those who know their place in the world and who, when they try to escape their shackles, do so with wisdom and skill. Then there are those who are still in high school, where might made right and bullying got shit done. They are the ones who will lead us to hell and damnation. They are the ones who seem to be doing everything at once. Flitting from one crisis to the next. Wearing the tag of "super-manager" with ill-disguised self-satisfaction. Overbearing. Overweening. Arrogant. Smug. I am done with them. If Rona doesn't put paid to their schemes, nothing ever will.