Who wins?

Recently I was down the pub recently and talking crap with the lads when one of my mates began bemoaning the problems he experiences with his moblile. He grumbles that it repeatedly drops calls. He's checked the battery, had it sent off, handed the phone back to his supplier but they say there's nothing wrong, so he asked me what he should do. I said I'd have a word for him with the provider and see if we could do something.

Now I'm not a contract lawyer, I'm a divorce lawyer but it is one of those things... as long as you're a lawyer people bring all of their problems to your doorstep, usually with the words "I know you don't do that, but you're a lawyer". They seem to think all law is the same, that even though I did study contract law as part of my exams, it will (in their view) have remained totally unchanged over the 20 or so years since I last did it. This is like saying to someone "Oh I know you did your maths O level 20 years ago but could you explain Google algorithm to me? I mean its all maths isnt it..?" Well... er... yes, but not as we studied it in the 1980's, well over a decade before the internet and Google. Can't people get this?

Let alone, there is precious little law shared between contract and divorce anyway, they're 2 seperate disciplines, its like asking a carpenter to amputate your leg on the basis "well a saw is a saw... isn't it? If you can make a good job of a table leg must be a synch to saw off my leg"... My reply to such a pillock would be... "Why yes, of course... I could make a nice dovetail joint from your cartilage and fix a Louis xvi replacement... you'll look swish in the dining room!!!"Of course nobody would. Yet the perception is the law is stationary, it does not move, that the English Parliament and US Congress got bored of passing laws a few decades ago and decided to leave everything the same...Huh...?

Now as it happens I did have a word with the mobile phone company and persuaded them that as he was on contract they really should renew the phone, after all he's the one using it from day to day and he'd be the best one to judge if its working. Without much trouble they agreed a replacement, which he was pleased to receive but needless to say yesterday he was bending my ear saying it was still dropping calls. So it must be a generic problem? Right... Yep, it is a generic problem, generic to him. Washing machines, cars, fridges, irons, even ironing boards... if it can go wrong it will go wrong... to him... or that's how he views it. Needless to say it doesn't go wrong, he just makes it wrong... mainly by his absolute refusal to read the instructions on anything. He can work it out, and get it wrong all on his own... then get me, or some other friend to put it right. Mind you its usually simple and he's always happy to buy us a pint or two. Many a night I've fallen over and knocked myself unconscious thanks to his generosity.

But it occurred to me, who actually benefits from this arrangement? He buggers up and one or other of his mates sorts it out for him, usually by retrieving the instruction manual. So he buys us some drinks.

Is he the beneficiary? Er... I don't think so... he has to cope with everything failing and nothing working quite as it should till someone gets round to helping him out... it then costs him a few rounds down the pub.

Am I... or those that help him out, the beneficiaries? Well no, not really. We waste valuable time which we could be using at work earning real money, at home with our families, or just wasting valuable leisure time... not only sorting it out but also talking about it down the pub when we could instead be discussing such subjects as:-
Questioner: Who'd you screw..? That blonde from Brookside but with Ghonnorea... or Anne Widdecombe?
Reply: Does Anne have any diseases?
Questioner: No, clean as a whistle!
Reply: Er... is Anne Widdecombe wearing a sack on her head?

Is the State the beneficiary? Well, that is more difficult. We earn less money and so pay less tax, but superficially at least, we spend more on beer, well Dave does anyway, so the taxman gets extra taxes from beer sales. On the other hand the government has to dispatch ambulances to treat us when we fall into the middle of the road helpless. So overall probably not.

So who gains? Why the landlord of the local, of course! He sells us beer while Dave describes his problem in great detail, more beer while we try to solve it for him without having to do anything and even more beer when he buys us the pints for the final resolution.

Oh and I suppose beautiful and ugly women in equal measure, since we have less time to leer, jeer, or speculate on what it would take to actually go to bed with them...

© OddBat 2008