Henry

Last month the kids came home from walking the dogs and told me “Your homeless friend says hi.”

For the last few years Bear and I have walked along the waterfront Boardwalk almost every day. Usually we’d run into Henry, sitting on his bench with his backpack and sleeping bag. In mild weather he’d put out baseball cards next to his donation cup. He’d offer bread or chips to the birds, and always save some for Bear. 

I probably spoke with Henry more often than anyone other than my family, particularly during the pandemic. On Friday he patted Bear and gave him a Fig Newton before sending us off to get the next treat at Village Books, with his usual “Go get ’em, Bear!”

On Sunday we saw news reports that the body of a man in his 40s with four gunshot wounds had washed ashore near the Boardwalk. Eleanor and I both worried it was Henry. Last night the police identified him as the victim.

Homelessness is an intractable social problem that seldom has a human face. Henry King was a real person – kind, friendly, and generous. Lux perpetua ei.

Passive Aggression

Some people are born with a profound sense of place. For example, I only feel at home in the Pacific Northwest. When I’m away too long, such as during my missions in Korea and Chicago, homesickness eventually overwhelms me. Any trip out of the Northwest that’s longer than a vacation becomes an exile.

In particular, I’ve developed a lifelong affinity for Vancouver, British Columbia. Everyone should – Vancouver is stunningly gorgeous and warmly welcoming. Being forcibly transplanted to Utah as a teenager only reinforced my initial imprint. Other than being close to family, the best thing about my move to Bellingham four years ago has been spending as much time as possible in Vancouver. My nostalgomania for the city tends to spill over and bathe everything Canadian with a warm glow. 

My place sense can also pinpoint on a particular spot. For example, as I wrote last year in “God Save the Queen E,” driving past Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre triggers intense positive memories from different eras of my life. Conversely, one of the many reasons I’m glad I finally moved out of Seattle after twenty years is that most blocks on Capitol Hill remind me of at least one regrettable gentleman.

Even though my parents moved to Bellingham in 1981, only a few of my memories have tattooed themselves on the city. I can’t drive down Yew Street without missing Gordie’s Bakery, even though it closed decades ago. And even though the site is now an Italian restaurant, passing the original location of Rumours on State Street evokes fond memories of when it used to be fun to sneak out to Bellingham’s lone gay bar. 

Fortunately, PTSD has not cursed too many places with painfully negative associations (other than the entire state of Utah). Nevertheless, whenever I look at a certain one of Bellingham’s many hills I’m painfully reminded of a particularly malignant narcissist who used to live there. The only time I was ever in the neighborhood was to visit his house for work.

All three of my brothers and several of their children graduated from Bellingham High School. Just across the street from BHS you’ll find Assumption Church and school.

I’ve never been inside the Catholic church or school myself. But every time I drive by, or simply see the spire from across town, I think of my former colleague Sarah Reyes.

Most of my interactions with Sarah occurred in the local offices of the Attorney General, located on third floor of the former Bellingham National Bank building downtown. The Bellingham Section includes about ten lawyers and the same number of nonlawyer staff. 

Sarah Reyes is the Attorney General's Bellingham Section Chief. Sarah was appointed as the local manager several years ago. She took over from the Bellingham office’s founder, an outsized personality who also served for thirty years as the Western Washington University's general counsel. 

Sarah’s style presented a huge contrast with her extroverted predecessor. I would describe Sarah as quietly maternal. In general she does an excellent job of attending to the needs of the office's close-knit longtime employees.

Although I spent a couple a days each week in the downtown office, all my work was for nearby WWU. On campus, representatives of the Attorney General are located in a suite in Old Main. 

After I had been working there for five weeks, I had an awkward coaching session with my immediate supervisor Kerena Higgins, the newly-designated Education Team Leader in the Bellingham office. My arrival at Western presented this novice team leader with her very first opportunity to gain some management experience. 

Ever since starting the job, I had been suffering from strange new anxiety symptoms. These increased significantly when, without any warning or explanation, Kerena sent an electronic calendar notice late one afternoon saying she would be meeting with me in my Old Main office the next morning, together with her supervisor Sarah. I stewed all night. The next morning I learned that the purpose of the meeting was to convey client concerns about a recent incident where I gave a routine orientation presentation to the newly-elected Associated Students board. 

My presentation had been a fiasco. I was still fitting into the university general counsel role. Meanwhile, as I wrote in “Intended Consequences,” the new student body president was a malicious hate-monger. During a year punctuated by vicious racist incidents in Ferguson and elsewhere nationally, she loudly characterizing every perceived slight as "violence" against herself, and a pretext for her own self-promotion. Over the next year, numerous members of the campus community found themselves in her destructive path.

Unfortunately, I was one of her earliest targets. In an obvious display of political correctness run amuck, the student body president and her posse accused me of racism, sexism, transphobia, and insensitivity to people affected by mental illness. 

When my newbie “Team Leader” conveyed these concerns, I acknowledged that I had mishandled the training. I tried to explain how the students’ response appeared to be grossly out of proportion to the actual incident. But she wasn’t interested in listening.

As with many government offices, a realtor would describe the Attorney General’s downtown Bellingham space as "Class B." Actually, it should probably be marked down to C+ to account for all the homeless people congregating in the vestibule. I certainly remember the office as a dreary place where I felt unwelcome.

One of my most vivid memories of the Bellingham office came the day after my team leader's bungled coaching session. Before, during, and after the meeting, my symptoms massively spiked. The next day I invited myself into Sarah’s office. I slumped in my chair, and poured out my history of dealing with anxiety. I reported that despite years of managing various symptoms, I had never before experienced such a strong and unexpected reaction, and that much of it seemed to be related to Kerena’s “coaching.”

Sarah has social anxiety herself. We commiserated about our disparate symptoms, and shared our approaches to managing stress. I thought she understood what I was dealing with. Over the next few months, I repeatedly returned to Sarah's office to update her with additional information from my healthcare providers about my disability.

I probably connect Sarah with Assumption because her daughter went to the school. As far as I can remember, she’s the only Assumption student I've known. But my brain also associates Sarah with Assumption’s spire because she turned out to offer an example of how ostensibly Christian people can do horribly unchristian things.

Thanks to Washington’s robust Public Record Act, I've now seen the detailed chronological file memos about me generated by each of my superiors during my tenure with the Attorney General’s Office. I had no idea what was in these secret files until long after the Attorney General’s Office illegally terminated my employment. They read like the files Stasi informants in East Germany kept about their families and neighbors during the Cold War. Each memo is almost comical in its breathless attempt to characterize even our most mundane interactions with a hostile spin. It’s like they took away the wrong lesson from some Human Resources training about the need to create a clear record before terminating an employee who doesn’t quite fit in. Particularly a single gay dad performing admittedly exceptional legal work under trying conditions.

In reading Sarah’s memo, I was shocked by her account of our conversation in her office the day after my supervisor’s “coaching” pushed my anxiety symptoms to new heights. She didn’t even acknowledge my disability. Instead, she described my conduct as insubordination, and reported me to her long-distance supervisor, Regional Services Division Chief Michael Shinn. 

I also discovered that Sarah had listened in on my distraught telephone conversation with Michael later that week, as well as our call a couple of weeks later when my anxiety was obviously much reduced. Yet Sarah said nothing about how these events were visibly affecting me. Perhaps she thought she was respecting my privacy. Or maybe she’s the kind of person who checks off administrative boxes, then hands off problems to someone else as soon as possible.

Bureaucratic wheels grind slowly. By the time my supervisors finished my long-delayed performance evaluation in Spring 2016, most of the concerns they identified were moot. My legal acumen and my problem-solving skills were universally praised. Other than complaints about my conduct from a couple of virulent homophobes and some bureaucrats in the home office, most people seemed to recognize that despite a rocky start I was fitting into my role. 

I was still struggling to communicate effectively about my disability, however. I’d even hired an experienced disability attorney to negotiate with my employers about how best to accommodate my PTSD. Even at that late date, we could have salvaged my career – if anyone had been willing to pause the rush to judgment.

Sarah Reyes was the one person at the Attorney General’s Office with firsthand knowledge of the most relevant facts about my situation:  the very real impact of my disability, folks’ pattern of unfortunate miscommunications during the previous months, and my increasing effectiveness in performing my job. Sarah was a senior and respected manager within the Attorney General's Office bureaucracy. Her championing my continued employment – or even just sharing accurate information about my disability – would have made all the difference in the world. Unfortunately, Sarah lacked the judgment and courage to do anything.

My last meeting with Sarah took place in my office downtown. I had been helping one of the young lawyers prepare for his first appellate argument. Sarah thanked me for my contributions. She observed that I finally seemed to be integrating into the Bellingham Office, and overcoming the challenges that had plagued my arrival. Sarah’s last words to me: “I hope things work out.”

Even the healthiest human brains are wired to lead us astray sometimes. 

In addition to candid self-examination, I have strived to give fair-minded consideration to each of the individuals who have crossed my path during this journey, regardless of how they treated me. I’ve tried to figure out where things went wrong, and what I can do to make things better. But if there is one lesson I’ve learned over and over again in the last three years, it’s that being right is not enough.  

In a speech to the Canadian Parliament in 1961, President John F. Kennedy said:

The free world’s cause is strengthened because it is just. But it is strengthened even more by the dedicated efforts of free men and free nations. As the great parliamentarian Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Good women, too.

Up tomorrow:  "Bar Discipline"

After each episode of Game of Thrones, the online magazine Slate asks “who is currently the worst person in Westeros?” “Westeros” is the fictional continent whose throne everyone is fighting over on HBO. “Western” is the shorthand everyone in Bellingham uses to refer to our community anchor, Western Washington University. My former employers at the Washington Attorney General’s Office hired me to serve as Western’s chief legal advisor, then spent the next year abusing and discriminating against me. When I’d made enough progress with PTSD to share some of the stories about my experiences, I decided to borrow Slate’s framing device. Stay tuned to see who will ultimately be crowned as the Worst Person in Western-eros…. 

Click here for other episodes of "Who is the Worst Person in Western-eros?"

Comfort Animals

Sometimes the universe speaks directly to you through music.

Vancouver’s weekly Showtune Sing-a-long Night is back, so last Wednesday after chorus rehearsal I was in my usual corner of the bar, sipping water. No alcohol – I was finishing a round of antibiotics to kill what currently looks like a mere bullet wound in my chest. 

Despite my recent plague of boils and other challenges, I’ve been in a shockingly good mood lately. My attitude seems even sunnier than would be justified by my improved mental health and my imagined career prospects. As I sat listening in the dark, I wondered what mysterious X-factor had been giving an extra lift to my spirits since the beginning of the year.

The piano player, Kerry O’Donovan, is a student of obscure musicals. Last Wednesday he introduced a song from an off-Broadway show I wasn't familiar with, Lucky Stiff. (Apparently it has a convoluted plot involving a contested will, Monte Carlo casinos, corpses with mistaken identities, and stolen diamonds.) Just as I was musing about what recent development might be boosting my cheer, Kerry began singing “Times Like This”:

Other people need
Romance, dancing, playing around
Other people need constant fun
Well I'm not one
I have my feet on the ground

Give me a quiet night
A stack of books
A tuna melt on rye
A simple walk together
Underneath the starry sky

And, suddenly, 
The night is something grand
And all because
There's someone special there
Who's gazing at the view
His head upon...your shoes

At times like this
I sure could use....
A dog

(Click here for a short version on YouTube sung by the lovely Katherine McPhee.)

Over the holidays I had to move out of my comfortable Bellingham rental house. Since then, my ex and I have been experimenting with letting the kids stay full time in one place. That means I’ve been spending alternate weeks in a ranch house with two charming Aussiedoodles. I’m loving it.

                 

As I recently wrote in “Guncle Again,” my kids are pretty useless as pet-owners. But they provide enough help to keep the dogs from feeling like a burden. More importantly, my ex and his husband are down the hill at the apartment if any real problems arise. Alternate weeks I’m away in Vancouver, or at my parents’ animal-free house. The dogs are ecstatic when I return. I feel like a fabulous gay uncle again.

Even the most adorable pet is not the same thing as a comfort animal. Moreover, neither a pet nor a comfort animal qualifies as a service animal. Here's a free legal primer:

The narrow definition of “service animal” includes

any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not service animals for the purposes of this definition. The work or tasks performed by a service animal must be directly related to the individual's disability…. The crime deterrent effects of an animal's presence and the provision of emotional support, well-being, comfort, or companionship do not constitute work or tasks for the purposes of this definition.¹

            ¹If you relish raw legalese, you can read the full federal regulation itself at 28 CFR § 35.136. Or, if you prefer, here’s a handy FAQ published by the US Department of Justice – back when it was into justice. 

Under both the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Washington Law Against Discrimination, every government agency and every place of public accommodation must welcome service animals. If it isn't already “obvious that the dog is a service animal,” proprietors may ask “only two specific questions”:

(1) Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?  

(2) What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?

Service dogs do not need to be specially registered or certified as trained. However, Washington now imposes a $500 fine for falsely identifying Fluffy as a service animal. 

As a separate matter, employers must consider any disabled employee’s request to bring a service animal to work under the same legal framework that requires a “reasonable accommodation” of the employee's disability, based on the circumstances of the particular employment situation. 

There’s exactly one exception to the rules limiting service animals to dogs:  miniature horses. Apparently they’re a thing.

The definition of a “comfort animal,” also known as an “emotional support animal” or “assistance animal,” covers much more than service dogs:

An assistance animal works, provides assistance, or performs tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, or provides emotional support that alleviates one or more identified symptoms or effects of a person's disability. For purposes of reasonable accommodation requests, federal law does not require an assistance animal to be individually trained or certified. While dogs are the most common type of assistance animal, other animals can also be assistance animals.

Recently we’ve seen an increasing variety of comfort animals in two contexts covered by different federal laws. The first is transportation. According to an article in Forbes, US airlines carried a million animals in their passenger cabins in 2017, mostly supposed comfort animals – representing species from peacocks, to monkeys, to snakes. The airlines and Congress have been pushing back at passenger abuses, and the Department of Transportation is working on new regulations that are likely to impose significant new restrictions.

The second area is housing, where comfort animals are here to stay. Landlords from college dormitories to public housing projects to fancy apartment complexes are busy developing policies that override anti-pet rules. They must accommodate a wide variety of comfort animals, while attempting to balance the rights of nondisabled residents.

Outside of the transportation and housing contexts, individual businesses are generally free to make their own decision whether to welcome comfort animals. Or plain old pets.

Although I’ve never been a pet person myself, I’ve observed how pets brighten many other people’s lives. Just like country music, and knitting.

However, I learned the power of comfort animals on the night I hosted the worst dinner party ever. I’ll save the details for some occasion when I’m in a sufficiently safe place – i.e., after I find a job, an apartment, and a boyfriend. As a preview, no host should have to explain to a guest’s date that just because you're from the South doesn't mean you're allowed to use the n-word in the hot tub. 

I suppose the fiasco was partly my fault. I’m a big believer in the Greek concept of “xenia” or gracious hospitality, so I try to accommodate everyone. Moreover, as a codependent person I acquired a stable of needy friends and acquaintances whose dysfunctions I (formerly) could not resist enabling. Nevertheless, even codependent hosts do not anticipate having two separate dinner guests bring small yappy dogs without prior notice or permission. 

For now, I'll limit myself to explaining how one of the dogs showed up on Whidbey Island. Let’s call the non-Southern dog-bringer “Hot Mess.” He’s a longtime Seattle friend who comes from a similar religious and mental health background as mine, but with bonus substance abuse issues. Still, he’s a nice guy, and in the past he’d enjoyed fun visits to the island. I’d told him he was welcome to come back for another weekend if he could make his way up to the Mukilteo ferry himself. However, as Hot Mess went through yet another difficult period, I was confident that he was incapable of the complex organizational tasks involved in coordinating various buses, boats, and trains.

I did not realize that Hot Mess had acquired a small comfort dog. Apparently it fits inside his leather jacket, and soothes him when he has an episode. After alarming numerous public servants and fellow travelers along the way, Hot Mess and his dog arrived on the island just in time for dinner and the ensuing chaos.

Recently I went over to the other house to help my daughter with homework, even though it was my week staying across town with my parents. Afterwards I took the dogs for a long walk through the arboretum. For a little pick-me-up.

So I should have been more prepared for my epiphany at Showtune Night, when Kerry sang about what a couple of Aussiedoodle comfort animals can do for your mental health:

My idea of company would be
A friendly face
The kind of face
That melts you with a grin
The kind of eyes that welcome you
The minute you walk in
A tender glance
You simply can't refuse

Times like this, a guy could use...another dog

He listens when you tell him things
There's nothing you can't say
And unlike certain people
You can teach him how to stay

And if the world
is giving you the blues
He cheers you up 
by chewing up the news

It's things like that
That make you choose...a dog

But.

When I arrived home from Showtune Night in Canada, I discovered my favorite jammies were missing. It turns out worn flannel is just as irresistible to chewy dogs as bad news and holey underwear.

So I sighed, and temporarily banished Bear and Buster from my bedroom. Facing codependency is all about establishing healthy boundaries. With dogs, it’s good to be a Guncle.

More Showtune Night Stories:

"Missing Marie's Crisis" (5/6/17)

"Get Out and Stay Out" (10/18/17)

"Six Degrees of Kristin Chenoweth" (10/31/18)

"I am Third" (5/29/19)

"Spongeworthy" (6/13/19)

"Maybe I Love Showtunes Too Much"  (9/17/19)

"Artificial Emotional Intelligence" (2/25/20)

"Do Gay Androids Dream of Electric Brunch?" (2/26/20)

"A New Brain"  (5/5/20)

Humble Bureaucracy

By the time I’d practiced law for twenty-five years, I had worked in two large law firms, a small firm, and a nonprofit advocacy organization. In each workplace, I reported either to the head of the entire organization, or to a lawyer who reported to him.

Two years ago, after Western Washington University university’s longtime general counsel retired, the Washington Attorney General’s Office (“AGO”) hired me to serve as chief legal advisor to the university. The AGO chose me because of my extensive experience and broad background in private practice and public service. My job responsibilities, status, and compensation all reflected my role as a senior lateral hire.

The org chart did not.

Instead, I reported to the Bellingham Office’s “Education Team Leader.” She in turn reported to the attorney managing the twenty-person Bellingham AGO Office. The Bellingham Section Chief reports to the Regional Services Division Chief, who reports to a Deputy Attorney General, who reports to the Chief Deputy, who reports to Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Bob reports to the voters.

The newly-appointed Bellingham Education Team Leader had zero management experience. She was a midlevel attorney who’d spent her entire legal career with the AGO after graduating from a third-tier law school. I was the only Education Team member under her novice supervision.

In contrast, the chief legal advisors at the state’s two larger institutions of higher education, UW and WSU, each leads an AGO Division dedicated to the university. Both report to a Deputy Attorney General. Other than at Western, every other attorney advising one of Washington’s public universities reports to the chief of the AGO’s specialized Education Division.

Six months earlier, the AGO had revised the local organization chart to address unrelated staffing issues in the Bellingham office. Upon my arrival, they mechanically stuck me into a vacant slot – even though the org chart was created before they knew there would be a new university general counsel, and before they knew who would coordinate the local Education team. The org chart was approved by Deputy Attorney General Christina Beusch. At the AGO, you need to be at least a Deputy Attorney General to approve decisions of consequence.

Let me hasten to add I recognized the Bellingham reporting structure was odd when I accepted the position. Nevertheless, I was convinced it wouldn’t be a problem. Throughout my career I’ve reported to lawyers who were younger and less experienced than me. I try not to be a reflexive snob, and I’ve worked with numerous fine lawyers who graduated from Seattle University. In most AGO offices, the “team leader” role is purely administrative. Colleagues would describe me as easy going and agreeable. I loved my job and was committed to making the situation work. I was confident we would all succeed. But I was wrong.

I met Deputy Attorney General Christina Beusch in Fall 2015, at the annual AGO Academy for new attorneys in a rustic retreat center on the slopes of Mount Rainier. All the Deputies and senior staff made an appearance, but Ms. Beusch was present for the entire orientation retreat. It’s her baby.

Ms. Beusch is an AGO veteran who achieved Deputy status at a record young age. I immediately observed she is decisive and outspoken, and a fierce defender of her beloved AGO. During the orientation, Ms. Beusch introduced the AGO’s vision statement: to be the “best public law office in the country.” She herself is an AGO true believer. According to Ms. Beusch, this superlative vision is within reach; I got the impression that she believes it has already been achieved.

Ms. Beusch is delusional.

There are many fine attorneys throughout the 550-lawyer AGO, particularly in divisions handling high-profile matters. But these dedicated and skilled public servants are spread too thin. A quirk of the Washington Constitution provides that only the Attorney General’s office can represent any state government agency, including the State’s public universities. However, the reality of Washington state politics is the Legislature refuses to appropriate anything approaching adequate funding to meet the State’s modern legal needs.

Or to fund the needs of basic education, or the foster system, or just about anything else – there’s just not enough revenue. Washington is the only blue state without a state income tax. Decades of paralysis from anti-tax ballot initiatives and partisan gridlock prevent any meaningful reforms to our outdated, regressive state tax structure. Even with the best intentions, without sufficient resources it’s impossible for the AGO to be the “best public law office in the country.” [Ed. note: Or in the county. Or the city.]

In our family, January 7, 2016 is a day that will live in infamy. The Division Chief summoned me to Seattle to receive my long-delayed performance evaluation. He told me I would be meeting with both him and Deputy Christina Beusch. I got his message the night before, in the parking lot of the Starbucks where I happened to be meeting my ex-Mormon Army veteran friend who also suffers from PTSD.

I began my very long day at Western, in the President’s office in Old Main. A group of grateful vice presidents and other senior stakeholders were there to close a complex transaction I had managed to salvage after a prior AGO attorney had given erroneous legal advice.

I ended the day back in Old Main, in the office of one of the university’s vice presidents to discuss another neglected transaction. Coincidentally, on my last full day at Western two months later, the Provost came down to my office to thank me for bringing stakeholders together and putting this important project back on track.

These important client meetings and the five hour round-trip drive through Seattle traffic sandwiched a horrifying encounter with my employers.

Ms. Beusch’s subordinate, Regional Services Division Chief Michael Shinn, began our January 2016 meeting by listing my alleged offenses. He read from a secret document the AGO still refuses to share. Mr. Shinn included prior complaints from months before that I thought had already been handled directly with the affected individuals. His list failed to correct several obvious factual errors I’d previously brought to his attention.

During the meeting, it became apparent that my immediate supervisors and supposed colleagues had each been keeping their own files of dirt on me, characterizing every encounter with luridly hostile spin to “create a record.” Clients and colleague uniformly praised my legal skills and acumen, but complained about my clumsy personal interactions. Again, the AGO refuses to share these secret Stasi-like informer files, demanding that I file a separate lawsuit under Washington’s Public Records Act.

This meeting was my first notice of the homophobic attack months before that became the subject of my sexual orientation discrimination complaint. I also learned a virulently homophobic client representative had also complained about my attempt to come out to him about my disability, grossly mischaracterizing our encounter. I attempted to respond to some of the charges, particularly the new ones, but my ambushers had no interest in hearing from me.

Instead, Ms. Beusch became flushed and angry when I described the challenge of serving my new clients while learning to navigate the AGO’s and Western’s separate bureaucracies, and promptly ended the meeting. One of my Bellingham colleagues later told me certain folks at the AGO are deeply offended by the term “bureaucracy.”

I have nothing against bureaucracies.

It’s true that I previously worked in law offices with “flat,” non-hierarchical formal org charts.  But any enterprise involving more than one participant evolves its own system of rules, norms, and procedures, whether it’s a de facto dress code, idiosyncratic use of language, or procedures for getting help with IT problems.

Humans are social animals. Organizations are organisms. I’ve always been fascinated by the myriad ways we arrange our affairs. My acute logomania compels me to observe and seek coherence in the patterns around me.

When I offended Ms. Beusch with my reference to “bureaucracies,” I merely meant that part of the challenge of any new position is to figure out how the system works. Like fish oblivious to water, longtime members of an organization are often unaware that there’s a system to figure out. In my case, the daunting learning curve included simultaneously integrating into both the university community and the Attorney General’s Office. In addition to all my other challenges, I had to cope with two email systems, two hierarchies, two IDs, two parking passes, two copy codes….

Websters defines “bureaucracy” as “government characterized by specialization of functions, adherence to fixed rules, and a hierarchy of authority.”¹ It’s a nineteenth-century term combining the French word for office and the Greek root for rule.

¹The definition of “bureaucracy” can also include “a system of administration marked by officialism, red tape, and proliferation.” However, I don’t assume Kafka-esque incompetence is inevitable. Except perhaps at the AGO.

I meant no offense when I referred to learning to navigate the university’s and the AGO’s two separate bureaucracies. They are two very complex organizations, with two sets of formal and informal rules. “Bureaucracy” is a neutral term accurately describing each office. As an office.

For three years, I served on the board of the Washington State Bar Association. It was an interesting but frustrating experience, often resembling an episode of Yes, Minister. Anyone who observed me jousting with WSBA’s skilled but occasionally nonresponsive and nest-feathering staff knows my go-to insult when when I want to criticize an impenetrable regime of inflexible office rules:  I call it a “French-style bureaucracy.”

Twenty-two years ago, I drove to my parents’ house to have an awkward conversation.

As I wrote in a recent tribute to my parents, no one in my family willingly talks about our feelings. In fact, we prefer to communicate about most important topics through a combination of telepathy and subtext. This has proven to be less than ideal in practice, particularly on those frequent occasions when everyone is confused about the time and place of family gatherings.

It also causes us to delay important conversations. Which is how I found myself at age thirty-one knocking on my parents’ door to tell them (1) I’m gay; (2) I just quit my law firm job in Seattle; (3) to move to Chicago; (4) with my boyfriend; (5) to be a gay rights lawyer; (6) for the American Civil Liberties Union. My parents handled it all exceptionally well. However, we agreed on a temporary cover story: I’d been disbarred and sent away to prison. 

A few days after my meeting with Ms. Beusch, I had the déjà vu experience of driving across town to have another awkward conversation with my parents. I had delayed telling them about my PTSD diagnosis. I didn’t want to cause them pain for their role in exposing me to the traumas of my youth, and I didn’t have the tools to gracefully tell them the whole Mormon-PTSD-codependency thing was all their fault. (As it turns out, it’s best to be blunt about this sort of thing. Or turn it into a clever joke.)

Nevertheless, based on my employers’ response during the meeting, I accurately predicted exactly how this was going to play out over the coming months. So I came out to my parents as a person with PTSD, and let them know that my job was in peril as a result of my disability. I felt I couldn’t wait any longer because they were about to leave for their annual snowbird month in Hawaii.

Once again, my parents handled it exceptionally well. However, my mother could not sleep all night, and her blood pressure shot above 180.  She told me later that week that I shouldn’t surprise them in Hawaii with any more bad news because she was almost out of her blood pressure medication. Fortunately, however, my parents have been very supportive throughout this painful process. 

Deputy Attorney General Christina Beusch ended our January 2016 meeting with some advice: “Be more humble.”

Since our meeting in January 2016, I have contemplated Ms. Beusch’s advice. No doubt Ms. Beusch and some of her xenophobic colleagues were convinced I was trying to change everyone to my liking, stomping through the AGO like an ugly American tourist in Europe. That was certainly never my intent. To the contrary, I believe in the Greek concept of Xenia – being a respectful guest. I was fascinated by both Western and the AGO, tried hard to figure each out, and appreciated their unique cultures. Similarly, I have sung in three very different gay choruses, but I would never tell the folks at Vancouver Men’s Chorus they should do things the way they’re done in Seattle or Chicago. Strangers and colleagues both deserve respect. I hope Ms. Beusch and I agree on the importance of cultivating this kind of humility.

Humility can also involve a form of submission. Lots of issues don’t have an absolute “right” or “wrong” answer, just a decision needing to be made by the duly authorized decider. Being part of a team means playing the game and following the rules. That means supporting the process and the respecting the outcome, even if you wouldn’t have ordered the deli sandwiches again if you were in charge. Of course, it’s hard to be an effective player when everyone else on the team is calling you names and hiding the ball – but I tried.

Ms. Beusch’s and my views on humility diverge when it comes to the common logical fallacy of “appeal to authority.” As I wrote last fall about the Mormon Church’s anti-gay dogmas:   

One definition of a fallacy is “any argument that’s not as strong as it thinks it is.” Ultimately, the proposition you are arguing for either is correct or it’s not. A fallacious argument does not increase your chances of being right. Instead, it gives you a bauble to distract people away from their search for truth.

In most situations, an authority figure’s opinion is simply one kind of evidence offered in support of the advocate’s proposed conclusion. Regardless of credentials, an authoritative statement standing alone is never dispositive of the facts. Depending on the subject matter, the conflicting evidence, the authority’s expertise, and the effectiveness of the presentation, her views may be more or less convincing. My children have learned to trust my pronouncements on numerous topics, from hygiene to grammar to the sequence of British monarchs since 1066. But they also realize it’s safe to ignore what I say on a handful of other less important subjects, such as pop music and dating.

Even the Catholic Church admitted Galileo was right all along. Eventually. That’s what happens when you stop insisting something is true just because you said so, long after everyone else has embraced the truth.

The most important kind of humility is recognizing the possibility you may be wrong. Thoughtful, unbiased, considerate skepticism is essential to good judgment.

One of tort law’s many colorful terms is the “eggshell skull plaintiff.” If the defendants’ negligent conduct causes a blow to the plaintiff’s head, the defendants are liable for all resulting damages, regardless of whether the victim suffers a bruise, a concussion, or a fatal hematoma. 

When Ms. Beusch told me to be humble, she definitely knew my doctor had diagnosed me with PTSD two months before. At that point, she knew or should have known my disability involved traumas from my Mormon youth. But she’s a busy and important bureaucrat. She probably didn’t realize how the Mormons messed with me by vilifying gay people and denying the existence of their sexual orientation – and how the AGO’s cruel, reality-denying, and authoritarian treatment was the primary trigger of my agonizing PTSD symptoms thirty years later.

Deputy Attorney General Christina Beusch was the one who rejected my initial request for a reasonable accommodation of my disability – offering laughably phony rationales for her decision, and zero willingness to consider any of the alternatives suggested by my healthcare providers. Then when I complained about the earlier homophobic incident, she was the one who placed me on an abusive administrative leave that felt more like house arrest. Finally, after refusing to hear from my doctors or my disability attorney, Deputy Attorney General Christina Beusch made the decision to fire me.

At least she didn’t accuse me of faking my disability, like my inept Team Leader did. Ms. Beusch just didn’t want a misfit like me in her beloved AGO.

After each episode of Game of Thrones, the online magazine Slate asks “who is currently the worst person in Westeros?” “Westeros” is the fictional continent whose throne everyone is fighting over on HBO. “Western” is the shorthand everyone in Bellingham uses to refer to our community anchor, Western Washington University. My former employers at the Washington Attorney General’s Office hired me to serve as Western’s chief legal advisor, then spent the next year abusing and discriminating against me. When I’d made enough progress with PTSD to share some of the stories about my experiences, I decided to borrow Slate’s framing device. Stay tuned to see who will ultimately be crowned as the Worst Person in Western-eros…. 

Click here for other episodes of "Who is the Worst Person in Western-eros?"