Wednesday, December 10, 2008

World's Best Boss and a Heck of a Good Person

As it gets closer to the Holidays, I think about what the General Counsel for the Texas Medical Board used to do when I worked there as a staff attorney. The General Counsel at the time, Tim Weitz, would instruct the attorneys to hold all legal documents (unless there was a court induced deadline or patients were in immediate danger of course) from approximately the beginning/middle of December until after January 1st. He did this because as he explained, no person deserved to have their holidays and their family's holidays ruined by legal proceedings at the Board. He would tell us to work during that time on the documents so that as soon as the new year was here, we would be ready to send everything out.

I always thought that considering the effect receiving bad news would have on someone's holidays was so compassionate and incredibly thoughtful. I find myself reflecting on this every single year at this time and then hoping that everyone would step back and look at their actions and the ramifications on others. So here is my holiday wish - Let's all make the world a little less cold and scary and connect more with each other by being more responsible and considerate!

As a note, just because he is compassionate does not mean that Tim is a pushover. He is one of the most intense, intelligent and powerful advocates I know and he has quite a reputation of a darn great attorney.