Aerin, I completely agree with you that personal choices/interests help determine the success you have in a job and the enjoyment you derive from it. Without knowing what we are passionate about, we’re certainly going to struggle to figure out what the “right” job is for us.

However, I think that one of the points that Eben is making in this class is that we need to thoroughly examine whether a particular job is the “right” one. Even if we know for an absolute fact that civil rights is the issue we want to pursue in our legal careers, that doesn’t mean that every civil rights organization would be a good fit for us as individuals. No job is going to be the “right” one for everyone.

A good example of this is our different experiences in the entertainment business. I was a network television sitcom writer for the past ten years and I disagree with some of what of what you wrote about the world of TV and TV writers. For one thing, I actually believe that tv writers have quite a bit in common with lawyers who choose to work at a big firm. Most sitcom writers come to their work from a creative writing background or a career as a stand-up comedian. They spend time developing their ability and then they “hock” that ability. Just like the lawyers Eben describes, they give up their right to choose their subject, their hours and even the approach they take to storytelling in exchange for stability (a little bit) and a nice paycheck.

I don’t think you could find a television writer who, in the privacy of his office or in the writers’ room, would tell you that they honestly and truly believe that their show is better because of the orders they take (and taking orders is what “taking notes” means) from studio and network executives and, in some cases, actors. One of the first shows I worked on was shot in New York. A writer quit in the middle of the season after the star of the show tore his script to shreds. He had to undertake a pretty nasty legal battle with the studio to break his contract and he knew doing so might mean he would never work again (he didn’t). Before he walked out on the show and began his legal fight, the showrunner asked him if he was sure he was doing the right thing by just leaving and flying back to LA. He replied, “If my plane to Los Angeles explodes in mid-air, and I die a fiery, screaming death, I will have still done the right thing,” and walked out.

For a lot of writers, the loss of any sort of creative control is just the cost of doing business and other aspects of their job are satisfying enough that they are, in general, happy. But some writers find it isn’t right for them, for whatever reason. People I’ve worked with have left the business for all sorts of other careers. One left her Exec. Producer position to raise her kids, one went into venture capital, another became a novelist and one applied the Kurt Cobain method with a shotgun in his mouth. Still other writers are pretty miserable in their day to day job, but are held in place by two things: the golden handcuffs of a healthy salary and the lack of alternate options (TV writers aren’t qualified for a whole lot other than sitting around and eating, a skill I’ve honed to a razor sharp edge). Every television writer I ever met was working on a screenplay “on the side.” Why? For some, it was just a chance to exercise creative expression outside the strictures of their day job. For others, it was because they dreamed of getting out. I worked with a writer who, every hiatus, would churn out screenplay after screenplay. He never generated any interest at all and, eventually, his agent kindly pointed out that maybe he’d better just stick to the sitcom thing. Our next hiatus, the writer goes out and writes another screenplay. We asked him why. He said, “It beats doing this.” It was pointed out to him that movies are notoriously rewritten over and over by different writers and that, even if he sold a script, whatever wound up on screen wouldn’t likely bear much resemblance to his original. His reply? “Yeah, but I least I wouldn’t have to stand there and watch while they kill it.”

It seems impossible to me that there is any job out there that everyone loves having and is happy and content in. And yet, that is what this law school would have us believe. We are told that careers are a binary proposition: either we’ll work at a large firm or do “public interest” work, at properly approved public interest organizations. I completely agree that it is important to listen to my inner bullshit, but the key, for me, is not doing so solely in regards to whether I’m “a public interest guy” or “corporate dude.” It is a seductive choice that the school is offering, because it’s simple and they are willing to make it easy for us to follow those two specific paths. It is not, however, going to be the right choice for some of us.

-- JohnSchwab - 15 Feb 2010